’Tis the season for Port drinking and some beautiful bottles are flying in and out of Brook Street at the moment, like this 1985 Dow’s Vintage Port.
(I’m not actually in the Long Room at my beloved Lord’s Cricket Ground but it’s nice to pretend that I am.)
Dow’s has long had a reputation for exceptional quality.
In Notes on a Cellar-Book(published in 1920), George Saintsbury wrote, “There is no shipper’s wine that I have found better than the best of Dow, ’78 and ’90 especially.”
(He meant 1878 and 1890.)
In the Douro valley in 1985, the weather was magnificent from June onwards.
(Actually, when isn’t the summer weather magnificent in the Douro…?)
Dow’s vineyards at Quinta do Bomfim and Quinta de Senhora da Ribeira were drenched in sunshine.
The grapes were gathered under exceptionally hot late-summer conditions from early September (32°C at midday) until the end of the harvest a few weeks later.
It was the first unanimously declared Port vintage since 1975. It’s probably the best Port vintage of the 1980s.
Dow’s 1985 was tasted by my old friend (and Port expert) Richard Mayson in March 2018, when he wrote: “Still deep and dark at the centre with a thin browning rim… some dark chocolate fruit… sweet (for Dow) and rich in the style of the 1985s, backed by firm tannins, with better definition on the finish.”
Well-aged Vintage Port is one of the world’s greatest drinks and superb value for money.
Treat yourself to a bottle (or six).