Beschreibung:

DOW FROM A SUPERB VINTAGE Lying in Twickenham, Middlesex (EHD) Dow--Vintage 1945 Embossed wax capsules, three slightly damaged. Some signs of slight seepage. Some very slightly scuffed and nicked labels. Levels: nine into neck, one base of neck, one mid and one low-shoulder In original wooden case, damaged Tasting Note: I have tasted this many times since 1959 when I noted it as sweet, full but not ready. Curiously, Dow bottled the wine in 1949. Only five pipes (each yielding approximately 55 dozen bottles) were shipped for bottling in England, virtually the only market at the time. One, by British Transport Hotels, tasted in 1989 showed considerable colour loss. It had a fruity, lean, liquorice nose, which after an hour or so became more and more fragrant. Surprisingly sweet for Dow, relatively light for the vintage, marvellous acidity, lean, dry finish. Another, bottled in October 1947 by Rigby & Evans with pre-war corks fully branded: no red left; lean, a touch of acetone of the nose and palate. Dry finish. I have many more notes, eight since 1990. Three bottles opened at a Dow tasting in Aspen in the summer of 1994: one, Oporto-bottled, was acetic, whereas the two English-bottled were very good, sweet, fragrant. Four months later, a well-nigh perfect bottle at a Dinner Classique at one of my favourite hotels, the Baur au Lac in Zurich, and another surprisingly sweet (for Dow) and full-flavoured bottle the following month at a Symington port tasting. Next, a disappointingly drab-looking Oporto-bottling though better on nose and palate at the Dow bicentenary tasting, somewhat made up for by another, deeper, sweeter and more fragrant served at the following lunch alongside an English-bottled jeroboam which, though attractive, was drying out a little. Palish, warm, rose-hip colour; light, spirity bouquet; lean, very dry finish. Last noted at the Symington family's tasting at the Berkeley Hotel on my birthday, May 2002. At best **** M.B. 12 bottles per lot