Taylor Very Old Single Harvest Port 1969

The 1969 Very Old Single Harvest Tawny Port comes in with 158 grams of residual sugar. It was bottled in November 2018 with a bar-top cork. The latest release in Taylor's 50-year Colheita program, this doesn't show a lot of energy, and it has a little bitterness on the finish. It is laced with a touch of treacle on opening, but that blends in well after some time. I enjoyed the complexity. It seems very mature in other ways, though, rather soft with relatively little intensity. That's all relative, of course. It still drinks well and tastes great in a very understated way. (I'd add that this, unlike most old tawnies, actually showed better as it warmed closer to room temperature.) Of recent releases in this program, I'd have to pick some of the others, granting that they aren't all here together. The next day, it tasted great, but it sometimes seemed a touch flat. For all of that, I still rather liked this for its freshness and elegance.

TA 5.5 g/l, pH 3.7, RS 158 g/l.Mid amber-tawny. Tobacco and dried herb, black tea, cinnamon spice and raisin fruit. Fresh acidity holds the fruit, but this is more austere and grainy-textured than the 1968, with more overt alcohol. Long, with plenty of depth, but outshone by some of its predecessors, like 1968 and 1965. (TJ)