First taste: Fonseca Guimaraens Vintage Port 2013

It’s my favourite fortified tasting of the year today – The Big Fortified Tasting.  So what better way to kick start the day than with my note on this, my first taste of a 2013 Vintage Port.  (You can read my earlier post with details of the vintage here).

Fonseca Guimaraens Vintage Port 2013

Deep and dense in hue and on the palate.  This is a brooding Guimaraens, still a little sulky, with grippy tannins and youthful spirit which have yet fully to integrate. They give it an impression of (relative) dryness which I’m very sure it will shrug off with time given the tight knit cocoa-dusted dark berry/currant and sweeter raspberry fruit at its core.  What I like best about it, especially on day 2 (when it’s looking a little more fluid/less tannin bound) is the freshness of the fruit.  It provides a juiciness to the mid-palate before the grippy tannins assert themselves on a spicy, star anise-inflected finish.  On day 2 it has unfurled just a little, revealing orange blossom and violet notes; the mid-palate is a little fleshier and juicier too.  Promising definition and structure.