Smith Woodhouse 2015 Late Bottled Vintage Porto, Portugal

This Late Bottled Vintage Port is produced in the traditional style, from the finest ports of a single very good year. By definition, ‘traditional’ means that after 4 years of cask ageing, the wines are bottled unfiltered and cellared for, at least, an additional 4 years before being released for sale. It is this bottle ageing that allows the wine to develop outstanding style and complexity, resulting in a deep coloured Port with rich mouth-filling flavors of ripe fruit balanced by notes of black chocolate and peppery tannins. This 2004 has benefitted from longer than usual bottle maturation, nine years in Smith Woodhouses’s own cellars. Smith Woodhouse Ports are produced in very small quantities by the Symington family, Douro winemakers for over 100 years.

Smith Woodhouse 2015 Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) Port was matured in wood for up to four years. Bottled in 2019, without any fining or filtering, it was then aged in bottle for a further six years in the Smith Woodhouse lodge in Vila Nova de Gaia, prior to release. This prolonged ageing, first in wood and then in bottle is key to the development of the sumptuous nose and flavors that lend this Port a style and complexity akin to that of Vintage Port. Most LBV Ports produced today are matured exclusively in wood, filtered before bottling and placed on the market without any bottle-ageing. Smith Woodhouse’s traditional method of maturation, marrying both wood and bottle-ageing, distinguishes it from most other LBVs currently available.