2009 Warre's LBV

The 2009 Late Bottled Vintage Port is the new release, although hardly a new wine. It is a traditional Douro field blend, heavy on Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca. It was bottled unfiltered in 2013 with a long cork after four years in cask and then held back at Warre's lodge for bottle aging before release. It comes in with 109 grams per liter of residual sugar. It's pretty spectacular. This unfiltered LBV is expressive and delicious. With the extra aging, it is also velvety and harmonious, but this certainly has power to spare the next day. It has the depth to coat the palate and fill the mouth too. With 90 minutes of air, it is very fresh, but it finally shows welcome hints of complexity. It does everything well and most things brilliantly. It should hold beautifully, at least for 20 years from its vintage date, but I'm guessing 30 may be more like it. For now, let's be a little cautious, but if you have good storage, there is no reason to worry about it anytime soon. If I had a quibble here, on the second day it was tasted it seemed to become a very different wine. What was balanced and harmonious became much riper and more angular as the power and big fruit both became more obvious. Nothing made me retract my initial positive view, but it did create a ceiling, at least for the moment. This is a Big Boy and it will be interesting to see if holds its balance and meets expectations as it ages more. I think it will.