2013 Dow Porto Late Bottled Vintage

Community Tasting Notes (6) Avg Score: 89.3 points

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  3/12/2024 - JCherniak Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Dark ruby red. Black liquorish with milk chocolate and some spice, followed by tea and maraschino cherry. Smooth and silky.

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  11/13/2021 - ChristopherB Likes this wine:

  From a 50mL bought in a shop in Porto- not sure how long it was on the shelf. Nice tawny-ruby-brick colour. There is ample flakes of precipitate - and this should not be an unfiltered, indicating that the bottle most likely was not stored properly and is quite old. On the nose, aromas of plums, prunes, raisins, pumpkin, alcohol. On the palate, the attack is frank, fruity, concentrated with the aromas as found on the nose. A good length but you can certainly notice the heat on the final. Despite the precipitated tannin flakes, it seems to be in relatively good shape. 88
  
  After visiting Graham’s Port lodge in Vila Nova de Gaia, I had this idea that I would find miniatures of two (or more) other LBVs to compare with the Graham’s 2015. This was not was easy as expected, as a) my wonderful wife is not fond of my drinking and as such, I must be discrete in my shopping, and b) outside of the lodges, it is difficult to find the latest vintage and be sure about the quality of the storage.
  
  In this tasting, I compared Dow’s (non-crusted) 2013 LBV, Taylor’s 2014 LBV and Graham’s 2015 LBV - the only one purchased in a lodge.
  
  I believe both the Dow and the Taylor suffered from their storage. Only the Graham’s was fresh. I still compared them, but won’t formally give an actual score to the Dow or Taylor at this stage.
  
  Of the three, the Graham’s was best (freshest, best balance), followed by the Dow which had nice aromas of an older Port and the Taylor was, though well structured, the least pleasant owing to the fine suspended particulate (tannin).
  
  The Graham’s was better than the 2011 I tasted when last in Portugal. 2011 was an awesome vintage, and this seems to demonstrate that a good-but-not-quite-vintage year can have better LBVs that an awesome vintage year, as in the vintage years, the best grapes goes into the vintage, not the lbv. I rated the 2015 higher than the 2011.

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  2/11/2021 - bacchus of knockholt wrote: 87 Points

  Dark ruby with youthful purple highlights. Deep plum and chocolate and cedar spices and dried oak. A sweet palate of blackberry, baked cherry, dates and prunes. The tannins are a little drying on the finish, a little too much oak which may soften with age.

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  11/22/2020 - Fat1Wombat wrote: 91 Points

  Densely colored and bright.
  Very lifted nose and dominated by the spirit and then fruit. Maraschino cherries.
  The palate is sweet and rich with lovely acid and tannin weight.
  Lovely wine that grows on me. The fruit may be a little overripe.

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  12/17/2019 - ColinR wrote: flawed

  Corked.

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View all 6 Community Tasting Notes

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