The 1994 Late Bottled Vintage Port was bottled in September 1998 with 92 grams per liter of residual sugar. It is a blend of 50% Tinta Barroca, 30% Touriga Nacional and 20% Tinta Roriz. Softer and fully resolved now compared to my last tasting, there is hardly a hint of power left here. It lacks vibrancy. After some 30 minutes of air, it is a little nicer and drinks reasonably well, showing caressing texture and welcome complexity. It happily does not show decay exactly, but the fruit has certainly faded since I last saw it. The next day, it was still along the same lines but a little softer still, without a trace of grip on the finish. Over the next couple of days, it faded badly and was not of much interest.
When last seen, this was a superstar of the tasting. Some four years later, it is nothing of the sort and clearly in decline, perhaps due to the bottle or perhaps the extra time in bottle (or a combination of the two). As the saying goes, as wines age, particularly beyond their safest path, it becomes more about the bottle than the wine.