1994 Smith Woodhouse Vintage Port

[*sweetstuff]

TN: Smith Woodhouse 1994 Vintage Porto, 20 pabv. Original Purchase Price: $31.55/750 ml at Gibbs World Wide Wines, Detroit, MI.

Opened for a Christmas party for two couples that are friends of Barbara's; I have some good Stilton and nuts that I'll serve with it, even though I prefer my Stilton with different ports than this. Opened Thursday night so that it can have good breathing time before the party on Sunday.

Managed to get just half the cork out. Moderate crusting. Blackish-purple with some edge transparency. Bakeshop, fruit sugar, cherry; anise/liquorice, mint; dried fruit, and tobacco, now a relatively simple nose but has some depth.

A dryish-styled, high-fructose, ripe port with relatively low acidity. Tannins are fine and ripe, and wine is showing some 'guts' as it goes into a medium finish. Also shows simplicty on the palate.

At two days this is what I thought: "Probably a good value for the money I paid for it at, say, 89 points out of a hundred. Will continue to evaluate over the next two to three days."

Three days after opening, I considered: "The wine is nicely integrated without any heat but it's not going anywhere more positive. Probably a wine at its peak; may hold for a few years at the present quality level."

Interestingly at four days (Monday) the tannins start to become more prominent and the entire wine picks up intensity. The wine becomes more intensely minty and the acidity noticeably firmer. I'd add a point to the overall quality and call it a 90/100, and guess that it might benefit a bit from some further cellaring. At this point a nice wine to have open during the run-up to Christmas. There's actually some very nice flavor synergy going on at this point with the Stilton, which as usual is maddenly undescribable.

Here's the last note, five days after opening (Tuesday): Cherries, thyme (lead pencil), cigar box, violets, bakeshop, with a lot of thyme on the palate and some hard tannins peeking out, with more acidity than I first thought, although not overwhelming. Creamy mouthfeel. Give it 90/100; excellent.