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Tasting of the Cockburn's commercially available range at lodge 1st October 2003 with Jim Reader | |
| Ruby | Very pleasant and clean fresh ruby, very well-made simple wine |
| Special Reserve | A standard, good berry fruit, obviuosly more to it than the standard ruby but still a simple, everyday wine, but extremely good of type |
| LBV | Lighter, fresher style of LBV, not very deep and gutsy, but nice ripe, mature style. Good structure and reasonable length. Well made standard LBV. Note that the brand Anno will continue on the North American market, whereas UK bottles are now just labelled LBV, in line with its competitors |
| 2002 Touriga Nacional | Not commercially available. Massively deep colour. Rich, full blackcurrant and blackberry fruit, some earthiness too. Huge palate with massive tannic structure and great richness |
| 2002 Barroca | Less deep than the Touiga, but still very dense. Slightly more green herbaceous character then the Touriga. Hard-edgedd tannins and medium weight, with some spicy, peppery finish |
| 2002 Cão | Very deep, even more dense than the Touriga. Richer and fuller on both nose and mid-palate, but tannins perhaps less obvious. Perhaps the Merlot role in the Port blend. |
| 2001 Quinta dos Canais | Nose dominated by the flavours of the Touriga Nacional. Big firm palate, full and structured, but lacks the zing of the 2000s. |
| 2000 Quinta dos Canais | Big elegant wine with fine fruit character and good structure. A mid term wine that isn't as structured as the Full Vintage, but is charming all the same. |
| 2000 Cockburns | Charming but massive wine, with bags of everything a young vintage Port should have. Showing very well. |
| 10 year old | Classic 10 year old style, good tawny colour, completely clean, dried fruit and some nutty character. Good length. Very good example of what 10 yo is about. |
| 20 year old | Classic example of style. Typical pale orange tawny colour with the classic combination of dried fruits, figs and dates with almond nuttiness. Fantastic length. |
| 1967 vintage | (from Magnum) this was a magnum that was brought back to Portugal from Bristol after the closure of Denmark Street. Very, very mature, almost tawny colour and initial reaction was that it might be PXD. Very fine, mature palate but really faded now, even from magnum. After lunch with Jim Reader and two other senior members of the senior team. Nice, but not great wine, and a big contrast with Vargellas 1967 tasted later in the week. |