1985 Croft Vintage Port -- some of this showed up in our market last year at around C$60 (750 ml), so I took a chance on a couple of bottles. Better than I expected from this house's mediocre reputation, though still not up to the top tier of this vintage. Medium-sweet and reasonably intense with good licorice and plum flavors, medium-to-long finish. 20.5% alc/vol, but almost no heat. Walks the line around 89-90 pts.

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Cheers.

Any suggestion of volatile acidity? Tsunami thinks most of the 85s are afflicted.

snow sucks, cold is worse.......

None, bman.

It suffers only from lack of intensity.

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Cheers.

Thanks for the note Seaquam. This is now available in Chicago for $38.

VM

I just tried the '94 Croft for the first time. I really liked it.

IW

Life without wine?...... Yeah Right.<br /><br />I believe we have 2 lives; the life we learn with and the life we live with after that.

suckling wrote about 1985

How did I miss this the first time?

Thanks for the TN Seaquam. You liked it a lot better than mr. Suckling did: I believe he rated it 81 points. My experience with Croft is very limited, but I really liked the '91, tasted sometime last year.

Stevie,

If you look at the article linked above your post, it looks like James Suckling rated this wine 87 points.

VM

He rated it 81 points in 1990. Until something much more current and explanatory is written , I wouldn't rely too much on any of the '85 ratings, other than to avoid buying most of them.
Top Food in Woodinville, which sometimes has one token VP, just got some '85 Warre's. Aside from the $85 price tag being too high (more typical of an '85 Graham's or Fonseca), I won't touch it.

i agree with blobby,

the only i did never taste any volatile acidity
were,
-fonseca, taylor's,"nacional"(tasted from a broken bottle )

the graham's was mostly perfect (at volatile view)
only in the last times i found a hint at a closer look/taste, but the quantity is very low and dos not
infect the "harmony" of this wonderfull port.

I just had the 1985 Delaforce - which I think is the same company as Croft, although I don't know if they make their ports in the same place - last week because my wine store had it for $15, and they said bring it back if you have any problems with it, but this one seemed to have most of the desciptors of VA and I hustled it back to the store! I also brought them the Suckling article as most of the people there were unfamiliar with the VA issue.

I hope my 2 bottles of Grahams will be OK! I guess the lesson for 1985 is Fonseca Taylor, Fonseca Taylor!

Welcome to Massachusetts - Be Fabulous and Say "I Do"

I haven't had any problem with Graham, Dow, Taylor, Ferreira, Noval or Krohn, although the Krohn was subpar.
I have but haven't tried yet Fonseca, Gould Campbell, Smith Woodhouse; Cockburn, Warre & Sandeman, which are supposed to be bad.
The bad ones I've had are Burmester, Rocha, Infantado & Offley.

I haven't had much experience with port, but I had a 1985 Fonseca recently that to me, was wonderful.

the 1985 fonseca is side by side the nacional the best 1985!

the taylor's is good but a little to sweet and flowery, some times when i tasted it blind i didn't
find out it's a taylor's.
the last "straight" taylor's was 1977 and they turned back to the "right" way with the 1994
(oh the 1992 is also exeptional)

I've had some wonderful Croft Ports. The 1945 is the best Port I've ever had. As far as 1985 goes, the Graham's and Fonseca are wonderful. I never bought the 1985 Croft, probably because I either didn't see a good review or saw a bad one.

Just one more sip.