Taylor’s 1971 Single Harvest Port

The early 1970s were not particularly kind to wine and wine drinkers. Bordeaux had a run of poor, even dire, vintages and Port had issues of its own from 1972 – 1974 inclusive after a wonderful declared vintage year in 1970. The year 1971 lives in the shadow of this. It was an abnormally cool year (I remember the early summer of that year myself, shivering as a child on the beach at Estoril and Monte Gordo in the Algarve). The heat never really arrived in the Douro either and the harvest was late, beginning on 15th October (well over a month later than the start of more recent harvests). It was the latest start to picking since 1909. However dry weather continued through harvest and the grapes were gathered in good condition. With the musts nothing like as intense as the previous year this was a good year to set aside wines for tawnies and colheitas. Taylor’s acquired the stocks of Wiese & Krohn in 2013 which has given them an access to extensive reserves of well-cared for cask aged Ports. This is the eighth in a series of Single Harvest wines, made 50 years previously.

Taylor’s 1971 Single Harvest Port ****/*****

Lovely amber-brick red-tawny colour; attractive, slightly lifted (floral) mellow fruit cake aromas with just a hint of toast and cigar box complexity; beautifully mellifluous on the palate with soft, summer fruit sweetness and freshness, suave and silky, all the tannins having fallen away leaving a long, still succulent though mellow and slightly spicy finish. 18.5