Howdy gang,
Scraped the wax off of a '63 Dow's Vintage Port only to find I'd waited too long. Perhaps about 5 years ago this would have been a stunner.
Through off about 1" of sediment.
Now ... most of the fruit had faded and it was an alchoholic "hott-ie". However, that did not preclude us from finishing the bottle. Art Stratemeyer ============================
Cellar! Wine Software
Laughing out loud :) That sounds like my kind of drinker. On a more serious note, do you think it was the bottle or the wine/vintage? I may need to rummage through the cellar and make sure I don't have any....
Art, welcome to the Dow's 63 club. Many years ago I bought 6 bottles each of 63 Dow's and Waare's. Perhaps 15 years ago, I opened the first bottle of the Dow's 63. It was brown, had a lot of sediment, and stank of oxidation and perhaps something worse. I just poured the glass of wine and the contents of the bottle down the sink. I then braved another bottle a few months later. It was a very good drink and not at all off. I still have two bottles left, and there have been no bad bottles since that first one. I have always wondered what made the one bottle so awful. The fill and cork were good, and it was not corked(the problem was much worse than corked). I wondered if someone had used the bottle to prop open a furnace door or if a worker at Dow's had substituted their lunch wine for the port which they drank.
In his 2005 pocket wine book, Hugh Johnson lists Dow's 63 in red, meaning that it is one of the best for drinking in 2005. Also, Michael Broadbent, in his Vintage Wine, last tasted it in 2001, rated it 4 out of 5 star, and suggested drinking it from now - 2010. Hopefully your next bottle will be better and you just had a single off bottle as I did.
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Hm-m, I've still got a few bottles of the Dow's, Graham's, an Offley-Boa Vista, and Taylor from '63. The last one tasted was the Taylor, but that was easily 10 years ago. Maybe the time has come to raid the '63s and see what shape mine are in. Thanks for the heads-up. Hope you had a bottle variation, but then again, only opening and drinking will tell.
Hunt
I am ever so happy to hear that you had 50% success. I have two bottles of the 63 that I was planning to open this spring. Maybe I will get lucky too. I will let you know in late April or May. Bill
Hmmmmmmm verry interesting ... made me dig back into my notes and much to my surprise ... have sucked down way too many bottles of Port in the past 30 years, other than what I put down as "age related" ... I have no notes that indicated any bottle variation at all.
Just curious ... were yours bought all at the same time, from the same supplier ???
Art Stratemeyer ============================
Cellar! Wine Software
Bill ... Please do. I've only one of the Dow left but do have 4 Taylor's .. be interested in what you find.
Aw heck ...... Maybe I'll pop one in the next week or so, never fails to add ... er .. ah ... spice to a nice weekend with Betsy
Art Stratemeyer ============================
Cellar! Wine Software
Aww, bummer. :^(
One of the best Ports I ever tasted was the 1963 Quinto do Noval. That was close to 10 years ago. I wonder how it's faring?
Tom S
Most unusual. I had a '63 Dows over Christmas and it was drinking superbly. I suspect you had a poor bottle. Incidentally the best of the '63s in my view is the Fonseca.
Ron Lel
Art Stratemeyer asks: "Just curious ... were yours bought all at the same time, from the same supplier ???"
I bought both 6 bottles each of the Dow's and Waare's 63 at the same time at the same store. The store usually kept about a case in the racks and brought out a new case when there was only a bottle or two left. Thus most of the 6 Dow's 63 bottles probably came from the same case.
I have not looked up my notes, but it must have been 2 or 3 years since I had either the 63 Dow's or Waare's. I usually pencil in "drink soon" in my cellar book when I think a wine needs drinking, and I find no such notes for either of the two mentioned wines.
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After what I have read of the 63 Dow, I decided to pull a 63 Taylor for this weekend. Has anyone been into this wine recently?
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After reading about the Dow, I pulled a bottle of the 63 Taylor for this weekend. Has anyone had any recent experience with this one. Bill
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I guess you mean Warre's? Anders
Bil Loftin wrote: "After reading about the Dow, I pulled a bottle of the
63 Taylor for this weekend. Has anyone had any recent experience with this one."Hugh Johnson lists the 63 Taylor's in red indicating that it is one of the best to drink in 2005. Michael Broadbent tasted it in 1999, rated it as 5-star out of 5-star, and suggested drinkig from now to 2015.
Something was very wrong with my one bad bottle of Dow's about 15 years ago. However, if the ports have all been properly stored all of their life, Broadbent's notes would indicate that the Dow's 63 is most mature but should hold until about 2010, the Warre's 63 should last longer, and the Taylor's 63 should last still longer. Broadbent has tasted these wines many times over the years. He does remember a very bad bottle of Dow's in the early days and another bottle that was not so good. He has tasted Dow's 63 over 40 times from 1965 to 2001.
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Tom or anyone else,
I was considering opening a '67 Cockburn this year. Do you have any notes or have read any recent notes on this wine?
BTW...I had the opportunity to buy a bottle of the '63 Quinto do Noval two years ago for $299, but I passed and bought several nice bottles of Barossa Shiraz instead. I'll always wonder what I missed out on.
Sean
Sean Slindee stated in part: "I was considering opening a '67 Cockburn this year. Do you have any notes or have read any recent notes on this wine?"
I have not tasted this wine. Michael Broadbent last tasted it in 2002, rated it 3 out of 5 star, and suggested that it should be drunk soon. Hugh Johnson lists it in red in his 2005 pocket book, indicating that it is a good choice to drink this year. In fact, with a few exceptions, Broadbent suggested to drink most of the 67 ports soon.
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It sure looks like it's not getting any better, so drinking it this year is probably the right thing to do. Thank you very much for the response!
Sean
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