1977 Smith Woodhouse Vintage Port

[Bradley Bogdan]

Finally posting my notes from 2-19-12:

Smith-Woodhouse 1977

Decant: 8 hours

Cork was starting to look marginal, but came out in one piece. It was decidedly soft and about 90% soaked through. Tons of sediment. This wine was still very burly after 8 hours of decant, but had a lot of fruit and bramble notes to it, as well as very good balance.

Decant: 16 Hours

Still awfully burly, but starting to loosen up some, giving the same profile of fruit and bramble, but with a smoother structure

Decant: 30 Hours

Finally singing, this wine has plenty of fruit and perfume, but retains that brambly/underbrush component to keep things from simply being fruity. Delicious stuff and at a great place, after the ~day decant.

[David Spriggs]

Agreed. This wine is a BEAST! It really needs some serious decant time... which too few tasters actually spent the time to do. Glad you got to see it in full form. I remember how blown away I was when I finally had a fully decanted/rested bottle!

[John Vachon]

Of the second tier ports this wine and the Gould-Cambell have always been the best in 1977.

[Eric Menchen]

Of the second tier ports this wine and the Gould-Cambell have always been the best in 1977.

Perhaps better than some of the first tier

[David Spriggs]

Of the second tier ports this wine and the Gould-Cambell have always been the best in 1977.

Perhaps better than some of the first tier

So.... which 1977 first tier wines are better than this and the G-C? I'm having a hard time coming up with any that I enjoy more than those two.

[John Vachon]

Taylor,Fonseca,Graham(can vary quite a bit), and even Dow(have not had in years

-and I'm not really a Dow fan).