1964 Single Harvest

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1964 Single Harvest

About the Wine

Taylor's holds one of the most extensive reserves of very old cask aged Port of any producer. They include a collection of rare Single Harvest Ports. These are Ports from a single year which age to full maturity in seasoned oak casks and display the year of harvest on the label.

Taylor’s has decided to make a limited release, each year, of a Single Harvest Port made 50 years previously.

The first in the series is a 1964 Single Harvest of exceptional character.The 1964 Single Harvest release will be followed a year later by the launch of an equally rare and exceptional 1965. Further annual releases of 50 year old Single Harvest Ports will follow.

Tasting Notes

During its five decades of ageing in oak casks, this wine has taken on an attractive pale mahogany colour with olive amber highlights. On the nose the wine displays fine oaky aromas and complex spicy, nutty, cigar box notes against a warm mellow background of butterscotch and molasses. The smooth velvety palate is lifted by a crisp acidity which gives the wine an attractive freshness in spite of its age. The finish is immensely long with rich, spicy, black pepper flavours lingering on the palate. Finely constituted and beautifully balanced, this rare Single Harvest Port would be an exceptional tribute to any 50th anniversary.

ACCOLADES

I allowed my glass of 1964 Taylor’s Very Old Single Harvest Port a couple of hours to open up in the glass, monitoring its evolution along the way. It is not a shy or retiring Port. Clear mahogany in color with a slight green tinge on the rim, the nose races out of the blocks like a young terrier let free in the garden, with intense aromas of grilled walnut, smoke, brown sugar, hints of caramel and a fug of alcohol that ebbs with time. The palate is smooth and honeyed on the entry, a very seductive Port wine, quite sumptuous in style, but with enough volatile lift to maintain fieriness toward the viscous finish. I speculate that had the 1963s not been so prodigious, Taylor Fladgate would have elected to follow their 1960 declaration with a 1964. That is all in the past. It is a delicious Port firing on all cylinders, ready to drink and enjoy now rather than cellar.

Neil Martin, Erobertparker.com