Dow's 1994

Vintage Port

An outstanding Vintage with great weight and structure.

Description

The good colour extraction experienced during this vintage together with the excellent ripe fruit characteristics is likely to ensure that this will be one of the finest Vintage Ports produced during the last 20 to 30 years.

Our Expert's Recommendation

"This Vintage is beginning to show some of the wonderful characteristics of bottle matured wine. It can be drunk now but will repay a few more years in your cellar. This wine has an intense floral nose - tremendous!"

Press Comments

Spiced plum nose - very heathery. Orange skins. Really gummy, liquorice taste. The perfect vintage conditions are so obvious here...A dried flower taste, especially violets.
Serena Sutcliffe , CUISINE & WINE ASIA 2008 VOLUME 12
01/01/2008

The massive 1994 is unquestionably the finest Dow I have tasted since the 1977...it is super-concentrated and multi-layered, with huge masses of fruit and some tannin in the finish...This is a slightly drier style...but it appears to be a classic, majestic, enormously constituted 1994 that should age effortlessly for three decades or more. It is one of the stars of the vintage. Anticipated maturity: 2004-2030.
robert parker , erobertparker.com
01/01/2008

"Shockingly drinkable at only eleven years old, this is a complete, balanced, beautifully integrated, lovely, juicy-textured, vinous Port offering rich but still developing red and black fruit with notes of tea, tobacco, and spice with a stony underpinning. Really lasts in the mouth. Pure pleasure. Outstanding."
Bear Dalton , The On-Line Publication of Spec’s Update
17/12/2005

“Classically concentrated nose with a dry, savoury edge to it. Luscious…it tastes rather like liquid red gems”.
Jancis Robinson , www.jancisrobinson.com
01/01/2004

“Closed and withdrawn but with underlying intensity. Sweet and succulent, fine and focused”.
Richard Mayson , Wine International, June 2004
01/01/2004

“When very young, the most “blue” in colour of the 1994s. Rich plums nose. Wet violets. Incredible, almost essence-like texture. Damsons finish. Wonderfully soft tannins. Mostly Quinta do Bomfim. At this young age, this seems the most luscious of the 1994s – it is so sweet, when it often the driest”. AND “…great colour and …a rose petals nose. Mineral elements too. Glorious impact of plums and prunes and sweetest on the palate. Long, dried fruit taste, with apricots kicking in. Liqueur-like at the end”.
Serena Sutcliffe, MW , A Century of Vintage Port
01/01/2002

“Dow 1994 is totally splendid – with incredible texture and damsons to finish”.
Serena Sutcliffe , Harpers Special Issue – Port Supplement
01/10/2000

“A blackstrap, powerful Port. Black, with intense aromas of raspberries, raisins, flowers and stems. Full-bodied and medium sweet, with a long, rich finish. Tannins pull at your palate. A wine for the future.”
James Suckling , The Wine Spectator
01/12/1999

"The massive 1994 is unquestionably the finest Dow I have tasted since the 1977. Opaque purple-coloured wine and is superconcentrated and multi-layered, with huge masses of fruit and some tannin in the finish. One of the stars of the vintage."
Robert M. Parker , The Wine Advocate
01/10/1996

“Dow is one of the two top Ports of the year ..... massive dimensions ...... a thunderer”.
Andrew Jefford , Evening Standard
01/08/1996

“Absolutely magnificent”.
Joanna Simon , Sunday Times
01/08/1996

“Lovely fruit. On the dry side. Marvellous balance and subtlety here. Full. Very good ripe tannins, a lot of depth. Multi-dimensional. Excellent finish. Real poise here”.
Clive Coates MW , The Vine No. 138
01/07/1996

“Best DOW in decades. Very tight and closed yet showing great potential. Full body and tannins and a tough, mouthpuckering finish. A great Vintage Port”.
James Suckling , The Wine Spectator
01/06/1996

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