1977 Smith Woodhouse Vintage Port

Jay Hack · Post by **Jay Hack** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:59 pm

We had a 1977 horizontal at my house on December 18. The Smith Woodhouse was the surprise. The Dow's was the best, and the debate was the Fonseca vs. the SW for second place. Warres was fourth but still good, Crofts was fifth and weak, Taylor was corked.

When the tasting was over, I put corks in a couple of the bottles and forgot about them. Today, I noticed that there was about a half glass of the SW in the bottom of the bottle. The cork was dried out. Pull it annd poured the port. 38 days later after sitting on the kitchen counter, it was still quite good. Had lost a bit of the flavor and the color had a tinge of orange/brown, but just a bit. The flavor was still a pleasure. I also noticed that there's still about 6 ounces in the bottom of the Warre's bottle. Try it tomorrow.

Stuart Chatfield · Post by **Stuart Chatfield** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 4:46 am

The only surprise to me is that SW 77 was not no.1 (or a close 2nd behind Taylor - was that included in the tasting?)

SW 77 will be an all time great one day (if not already), as I have predicted in other posts, and is certainly in my top-5 all timers, at least.

I've got some more on the way to me so may post another TN soon.

Al B. · Post by **Al B.** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:28 am

I thought that I pushed the limits when I drank a bottle of port over a 4-5 day period.

Jay - thanks for posting on this. I might try a deliberate experiment to see how a wine changes over this sort of time. I could use this to justify having lots of bottles of port open all at the same time.

Please let us know how the Warre's tastes.

Alex

Richard Henderson · Post by **Richard Henderson** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 8:25 pm

I have recently ( last week) bought out the local supply of SW 1977 at a friendly merchant who was "unloading it" for $56 American dollars.

Tom Archer · Post by **Tom Archer** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:34 pm

For the USA that was a very good price!!

Richard Henderson · Post by **Richard Henderson** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:44 am

It is a great price as the average on Winesearcher in the U.S. is $100.
This is a merchny from whom I have made many fine port buys over the years.

Richard Henderson · Post by **Richard Henderson** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:38 pm

After the week from hell in my profession, of course, as an attorney, some might say I was simply at home....I have opened one of my newly acquired 77 SW's. From the release of the cork, strawberry, like the Twizzlers. Heavy red berry fruit and mint. Great depth, almost perfumy like a Margaux. Spearmint . Bay leaves. Cinnamon. The first taste is ripe red plums, Malabar pepper, needs time for the alcohol to mellow. Great deep dark garnet color. How will it be after a few hours?