Smith Woodhouse 1980
Vintage Port
A wildly under-rated Vintage.
Description
Now showing tremendous character and charm. Hard and largely closed a couple of years ago, Smith Woodhouse 1980 is now showing its class.
Our Expert's Recommendation
"This wine is now beginning to reach its full maturity and is likely to be ready for drinking. As it ages further, it will begin to develop gently into a more tawny style wine. Drinking extremely well now, and is a very good buy, as it fetches modest prices yet is much better than other more expensive years."
Press Comments
"Inky magenta colour, the nose presents chocolate covered strawberry and licorice aromas. This Smith Woodhouse is a big, fruit forward delicious VP with a great, yuothful core of dark berry fruits and solid structural components for continued improvement in the cellar. The tannins are equal to the task and it provides a fine juicy aftertaste".
“Deep crimson with evolved rim. Concentrated, powerful, vigorous”.
"Very dark and promising, almost youthful. Still lots give: terse, dark, good fresh fruit and real ripe pungency come charging out of here. Great harmony now, but a sense that added time would bring still more articulacy. Dense, full, rich, rounded, with a lovely frank and forthcoming quality of fruit with trumpet-blasts of spice – a kind of Nuits-St-Georges quality to this fruit, in other words..."
"My highest rating of the 14 ‘80s tasted blind at Christie’s…notably deep, plummy, very forthcoming fruit on the nose, richness, almost malty; very sweet, full-bodied, lovely flavour, intensity and length."
"A good deep colour with a closed but dense nose and lovely fruit flavours, black cherry and all spice. This finishes with a flourish."
"Smith Woodhouse 1980 portrays rich, tannic fruit with opulent layers of liquorice, figs, raisins, blackberries, plums and a hint of cedar wood."
"Very good colour. Still youthful. Lovely nose. Rich and plummy. Lots of depth. This is really very good indeed for a 1980. Fullish body. Still youthful. Good long positive finish. Very good indeed."
"Vintage port from a supposedly second-division shipper in what was once thought of as being a second-division vintage. How wrong can you be? This is an aristocrat and a bargain."
"Tight, hard and closed, but extremely good for a 1980…with wonderful perfumed berry aromas, full-bodied, very tannic, with lots of grapy flavors."
"The 1980s were an excellent decade for Smith Woodhouse, which produced a string of outstanding vintage Ports every declaration."
"My experience with Smith Woohouse is limited, but I was impressed with a 1980 vintage port that showed a lovely, supple, ripe fruity character…"
Additional Information
For more information about Smith Woodhouse, please visit
http://www.smithwoodhouse.com/