Smith Woodhouse 1977

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g-man
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Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by g-man »

Had Sushinorth over last night and we did a mini 77 tasting

delaforce
fonseca
smith woodhouse

The first two came out as expected, delaforce with a strong celery note that was pleasant at first until one tried the fonseca and then it just became tart.

There has been talk previously abotu the youth of the SW77 and having it midday side by side with the other wines leads me to question it.
The cork was practically new, certainly an incredible specimen if indeed 40 years of age. Nothing about the age of this bottle said 1977 which leads me to wonder if perhaps a house cheated by rereleasing an lbv from the 90's but slapped on the 77 on the label???

What you guys think?
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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g-man wrote:SW77 […] perhaps a house cheated by rereleasing an lbv from the 90's but slapped on the 77 on the label???

What you guys think?
That is not the Symingtons’ style. Just not.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by Glenn E. »

I've had many "like new" corks from the 80s. A 77 isn't much of a stretch.

SW has been used for late releases before, too. A bottle stored in the lodge might show significantly less age.

In short, no. Nothing to see here.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by DRT »

The Symingtons regularly re-cork older vintages before releasing. That is what you had.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by LGTrotter »

I bought a dozen in the UK from Berrys a while back and it turned out it was two half cases. In a thread somewhere Tom said that he thought these were a recent shipment from Portugal and that they would have been recorked prior to shipping. I was a little worried, both by the storage in Portugal (the consensus view being that they age faster in Portugal) and by the recorking which I don't think helps. So I would support the view that there are no shenanigans going on here and I am delighted that a recorked port is showing so well. I have not yet had them delivered and I think on the basis of your experience may leave them with Berrys for a few more years.
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RAYC
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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DRT wrote:The Symingtons regularly re-cork older vintages before releasing. That is what you had.
plus they seem to have a method of re-polishing the bottles to make them look pristine.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by jdaw1 »

RAYC wrote:plus they seem to have a method of re-polishing the bottles to make them look pristine.
Bottles stored in Gaia are typically unlabelled. So they wash the bottles, presumably with cold water, and then affix a label.
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g-man
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by g-man »

DRT wrote:The Symingtons regularly re-cork older vintages before releasing. That is what you had.
ah good to know.

I've seen it done with some of the dow 85's that have been released.

I guess it's always shocking to see the SW 77 when opened.
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g-man
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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jdaw1 wrote:
RAYC wrote:plus they seem to have a method of re-polishing the bottles to make them look pristine.
Bottles stored in Gaia are typically unlabelled. So they wash the bottles, presumably with cold water, and then affix a label.
that woudl beg the question if a cellar stocker were lazy that day and simply stocked whatever storage bin may have been empty and closests unbeknownist to the cellar master and fellow owners?

though if they did recork, i guess it's simply matching up the cork pulled with the bin it was stored in.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by Andy Velebil »

g-man wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:
RAYC wrote:plus they seem to have a method of re-polishing the bottles to make them look pristine.
Bottles stored in Gaia are typically unlabelled. So they wash the bottles, presumably with cold water, and then affix a label.
that woudl beg the question if a cellar stocker were lazy that day and simply stocked whatever storage bin may have been empty and closests unbeknownist to the cellar master and fellow owners?

though if they did recork, i guess it's simply matching up the cork pulled with the bin it was stored in.
I've never seen an unorganized bottle storage area in Gaia.
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uncle tom
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by uncle tom »

I've never seen an unorganized bottle storage area in Gaia.
I have - the bits that are not on the regular tourist trail can be a right mess..

But they do tag the bins - after a fashion - and very rarely put more than one wine in a bin, unless they can be clearly separated.

SW77 is a very young wine. I last decanted one of mine on Dec 4th '13, making the note: 'Full and really immature despite it's 36 years'
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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uncle tom wrote:
SW77 is a very young wine. I last decanted one of mine on Dec 4th '13, making the note: 'Full and really immature despite it's 36 years'
absolutely, but we all can admit that it's certainly not the norm in terms of representing the 77' vintage. It's darker than the 92' de la rosa i have opened!!
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by Glenn E. »

g-man wrote:
uncle tom wrote:
SW77 is a very young wine. I last decanted one of mine on Dec 4th '13, making the note: 'Full and really immature despite it's 36 years'
absolutely, but we all can admit that it's certainly not the norm in terms of representing the 77' vintage. It's darker than the 92' de la rosa i have opened!!
It's an outlier, that's for sure. But so are D80 and FG76 and... there are several. And as I recall from our tasting on the matter, flavor-wise they all seemed perfectly normal (for their appearance) and not adulterated in any way.

Plus that's what every SW77 is like. If it were a situation like you suggested, I would expect to see both "normal" and "too young" bottles on the market. We don't see that.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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Glenn E. wrote: Plus that's what every SW77 is like. If it were a situation like you suggested, I would expect to see both "normal" and "too young" bottles on the market. We don't see that.
i must admit i haven't had a proper port tasting in a while. As sushinorth was over, and he brought a 77 delaforce, we figure an impromptu 77' tasting was called for.

As with "normal" and "too young", it would seem that the bottle itself is refreshed. Cleaned, new label, new cork. Not sure if the process includes potentially refreshing the wine itself, which even major first growths bordelais do. That would explain the consistency in that instance.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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g-man wrote:
Glenn E. wrote: Plus that's what every SW77 is like. If it were a situation like you suggested, I would expect to see both "normal" and "too young" bottles on the market. We don't see that.
As with "normal" and "too young", it would seem that the bottle itself is refreshed. Cleaned, new label, new cork. Not sure if the process includes potentially refreshing the wine itself, which even major first growths bordelais do. That would explain the consistency in that instance.
Glenn's point is a powerful one, however presumably if the level in the bottles was low when recorking then the bottle would have been topped up. Whether with another bottle of 77 Smith Woodhouse, sacrificed for the purpose or something younger I do not know...

Anyway enough of this desultory banter, any chance of a tasting note for this miraculous bottle?
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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SW77 tastes young, at least according to my TNs of 3rd June 2015 and of 26th March 2015. These were not ex-cellars, having been in the vendor’s “possession since 1984 ish”.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by Andy Velebil »

uncle tom wrote:
I've never seen an unorganized bottle storage area in Gaia.
I have - the bits that are not on the regular tourist trail can be a right mess..
I should have been a little more clearer. What producer has bins of things aging that aren't labeled, without a bin marker, and all tossed together? While I've seen things spread all over a given area, it was all properly marked in some fashion so as one could easily tell what it was.

On a side, exactly how does one "lose" a pipe of Port in ones cellar for decades as some stories have been told? I mean really, you've got full time cellar masters that keep track of everything. Just look at old detailed record books and now computerized record keeping. If you're a smaller producer it's even harder to "lose" a pipe for long periods when you don't have a huge Lodge. They aren't exactly small or light, lol.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by Andy Velebil »

g-man wrote:
uncle tom wrote:
SW77 is a very young wine. I last decanted one of mine on Dec 4th '13, making the note: 'Full and really immature despite it's 36 years'
absolutely, but we all can admit that it's certainly not the norm in terms of representing the 77' vintage. It's darker than the 92' de la rosa i have opened!!
SW is often very deeply colored and the 1977 is still very dark. That is quite normal for this label.
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uncle tom
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by uncle tom »

that it's certainly not the norm in terms of representing the 77' vintage. It's darker than the 92' de la rosa i have opened!!
Some vintage ports remain youthful so far beyond their years that people doubt their authenticity, but it really does happen.

Noval '31 is the classic example, Constantino '47 is another. Mackenzie '55 is so young, many believe it must be fake, but I'm satisfied otherwise. Dow '66 is another strong player, as is SW77..

..it happens!
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by Andy Velebil »

uncle tom wrote:
that it's certainly not the norm in terms of representing the 77' vintage. It's darker than the 92' de la rosa i have opened!!
Some vintage ports remain youthful so far beyond their years that people doubt their authenticity, but it really does happen.

Noval '31 is the classic example, Constantino '47 is another. Mackenzie '55 is so young, many believe it must be fake, but I'm satisfied otherwise. Dow '66 is another strong player, as is SW77..

..it happens!
The high percentage of Sousao in Noval Nacional is what also gives that it's very deep color. And why it's again, some 140-ish years after Phylloxera, becoming very popular again.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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The high percentage of Sousao in Noval Nacional is what also gives that it's very deep color. And why it's again, some 140-ish years after Phylloxera, becoming very popular again.
I wasn't thinking about the Nacional '31. The Nacional vineyard was very young when the '31 vintage came along, and I don't know of any trustworthy notes on NN31 from the last forty years that don't include some measure of disappointment. The regular N31 however is holding up superbly.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by Alex Bridgeman »

g-man wrote:Not sure if the process includes potentially refreshing the wine itself, which even major first growths bordelais do. That would explain the consistency in that instance.
I'm pretty sure that SFE don't do this. This is based on a handful of occasions when I've had an order cancelled with an apologetic explanation of something like "When we went to the bin to get the bottles we found they had leaked at bit. Sorry, we can't supply them." If SFE were in the habit of topping up so bottles had good fill levels when they were sold it's unlikely my order would have gone unfulfilled.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by idj123 »

With the 75cl bottle of SW77 tasting so young in comparison to many of its peers, when should I leave it in order to open it magnum form!?
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

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AHB wrote:
g-man wrote:Not sure if the process includes potentially refreshing the wine itself, which even major first growths bordelais do. That would explain the consistency in that instance.
I'm pretty sure that SFE don't do this. This is based on a handful of occasions when I've had an order cancelled with an apologetic explanation of something like "When we went to the bin to get the bottles we found they had leaked at bit. Sorry, we can't supply them." If SFE were in the habit of topping up so bottles had good fill levels when they were sold it's unlikely my order would have gone unfulfilled.
well if ullage were truly too low, a few of the big bordeaux houses simply keep such bottles around to be utilized to fill other bottles.

Penfold's definitely does this with the grange. They will keep aside "bad" bottles of grange solely for purposes of refilling bottles that get brought into be refreshed (a yearly occurrence where they have a cellar master travel to these events and oversee the refreshing process). They will also, cut it with a more recent vintage.
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Re: Smith Woodhouse 1977

Post by Andy Velebil »

uncle tom wrote:
The high percentage of Sousao in Noval Nacional is what also gives that it's very deep color. And why it's again, some 140-ish years after Phylloxera, becoming very popular again.
I wasn't thinking about the Nacional '31. The Nacional vineyard was very young when the '31 vintage came along, and I don't know of any trustworthy notes on NN31 from the last forty years that don't include some measure of disappointment. The regular N31 however is holding up superbly.
Agree the couple times I've had them I've preferred the regular to the NN. Many others swear by the NN, because IMO label bias told them they should, LOL.

We need to revisit that discussion about 1931 NN being the first. There is at least one record Julian found of a NN prior to that. I know what folk lore is but I find it odd they would replant that entire section at one time for a variety of reasons.
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