Fonseca Vintage Port 2003
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Written By: Brian Freedman on Thu, Aug 23rd 2007
This wine is not for the faint of heart—or the shallow of wallet. In fact, don’t even think of buying this wine if you don’t have a cellar to store it in, unless you want to experience for yourself what all the fuss is about right now. 2003, after all, will go down as one of the great recent vintages for Port. And while the best of them—and this Fonseca is certainly included in that group—will not reach their peak for decades, it will prove instructive to taste a bottle now and then again in a decade or two. Right now, the Fonseca 2003 is still in its infancy, with all the over-aggressive tannins you’d expect. But there’s greatness hiding in the bottle, and the balance between black fruit and minerality, all of it held together by a strong yet elegant tannin structure, should evolve into something profound as the years bleed into decades. It’s complex now, to be sure, but nowhere near where it will be in ten or fifteen years time. If you have room for it in your cellar, buy three bottles: One to taste now and two to lay down. The evolution of this wine should be a sight to behold.
