GrahamsLate Bottled Vintage Port 2009

"This is a smooth and rich wine, with generous fruit alongside spice and ripe, black plum fruit accents. Ready to drink, it shows surprising balance between a perfumed character and an unctuous palate."

The 2009 Late Bottled Vintage Port is a filtered blend bottled in 2014 with a bar top cork. It was not released as of this writing, but was scheduled to be in January 2015. It comes in at 112 grams per liter of residual sugar, the sweetest of the Symington current releases on paper, but also in perception. After a rather boring opening that made it seem dull and far too light, this really expanded beautifully in the glass, not only in the mid-palate, but in pure power. It was at times my favorite of the Symington group bar tops reviewed this issue, but if I had a quibble, the nose was quite funky, with a certain sweaty socks nuance. I´ve seen that off and on with newly shipped and bottled Ports, but it typically goes away. Happily, that did begin to improve with aeration, as did the wine in general. I let it sit in the fridge for a couple of days and it evolved beautifully. The nose was just fine now. Eventually showing some power on the sweet finish, this is both pretty nice and awfully tasty. On Day 3, it showed a more graceful demeanor and surprising finesse that it did not originally display. This is in theory not made in a style designed to age in the bottle, but barring cork failures, it should hold easily for awhile–not that anyone expects it to be held. There is little point to doing so, as it is simply delicious now, not likely to improve much and it is very approachable.