Taylor's Scion Port

I tasted this Port in the Taylor's 1863 pre-launch tasting a few weeks ago. Although the port is from a single harvest, it was not sold with the year specified because certain "irregularities" meant that it cannot be labeled with the year. The year concerned was 1855, the year of the Great Exhibition for which the Bordeaux Classification of the same year was made.

This wine was aged in a cool cellar in the upper Douro ( as opposed to the 1863 which was aged in the much hotter conditions of Oporto). The wine was a deep mahogany brown, with a complex savoury pickled swede (蔥棻)  nose sporting a slight hint of spirit. There was sweet acid vine fruit notes with smokiness and again a touch of spirit on the palate. The smoky acid  elements continued to provide sterling support as the backbone of this old wine, with the smoky notes persisting into a long finish. It is interesting that the spirity notes are still present in this wine over 150 years old, but as is noted in the tasting, this spirit also ages in its own special way within the port, although one might have thought 159 years was ample for full integration between the spirit and the rest of the wine.