Owen Roe’s locally famous Abbot’s Table is the quintessential Portland wine, perhaps because it embodies Portland values-lack of pretension, good value, and downright good. The vertical tasting consisted of five vintages (2003, 04, 05, 06, 08) plus a bonus tasting of Orin Swift’s 2007 “The Prisoner” a powerhouse Napa Valley Zinfandel.
The Abbot’s Table blends all had the same pedigree and Owen Roe flavors of dark fruits and cedar, yet clearly the 2003 was past it’s prime and 2004 was the clear winner of the bunch. 2008 seemed to differ in style and was closest to the “fruit bomb” of the Orin Swift with less subtlety and earth as the other vintages. The group kept coming back to the 2004, and it was emptied first.
The Orin Swift is clearly a new world fruit bomb with a lot of muscle, too young to clearly define the fruits but tasty nonetheless. All of the Abbot’s Tables are drinking well now, the 2008 will probably get better with age so drink up your older vintages now!
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Interesting! We recently did a vertical tasting from 01 to 07 (missing 05) and didn't find the 03 to be "over", and certainly not clearly past its prime. In fact, two tasters (not professional but with very good palates) selected it as a favorite. I wonder if storage or individual bottles…or simply individual tastes…acount for that. The 02 was also stellar, but definitely not able to hold on much longer. The 01 was wacky, but still oddly delicious. It was always the fruit-bombiest of the group, even when new, (04 is up there too in the unctious fruit quotient) and that's working in its favor as it heads over the cliff into some hybrid of wine and port. 07 was the weakest, but maybe with age….
Mostly, it's fun to imbibe such a big, friendly blend.