The 1994 BRANCO would be my pick for the best of the 90s. It has amazing perceptible acidity, which no doubt helped to preserve it. It shows some age, but it is still quite intense and mouthpuckering. I imagine this might have been called shrill in its youth, and it still has a nuance of that present, but with a mature nose now and some maturity around the edges, it seems more exhilarating than shrill. It holds nicely with air, too. Drink now-2015. While I would certainly argue that the wines tended to show better as a group and the scores started to rise with a little less age, there cannot be any question that some of the older wines were a lot more than curiosities and simply shattered regional stereotypes. Despite evidence of long drinking windows, I am still going to be a little stingy on the drinking windows of the new releases, though. Wines on the fragile side have a way of showing well at the winery but not surviving travel well. The vertical written up below was presented at the winery in the Summer of 2009. Quinta de Soalheiro is a familiar name in the Vinho Verde region, having planted its first Alvarinho vines in 1974, from which in 1982 it produced the first Alvarinho wine in Melgaco, according to the winery. They are particularly known for their ageworthy Vinho Verde—to many, a fantastic premise. Yet, the winery, only somewhat in jest, jokes that they guarantee five years. Five years in a good vintage here isn’t even an issue. To be sure, other wineries in the region have made some wines that have aged quite well. It is not as if everything falls apart in 12 months. Yet, it is hard to match this vertical in terms of ageworthiness—it is hard even to talk about it without the listener raising an eyebrow.Importer: Aidil Wines & Liquors, a division of Olde World Imports, Inc., Rahway, NJ; tel. (973) 642-0044