The 1955 Taylor's Vintage Port is tight on the nose with notes of red cherry, fig, marmalade and tobacco leaf, all quite conservative and correct. The palate is very well balanced, beautifully defined and graceful but it does not have the brio, the hubris of the 1945 or 1948, missing the intellectual dimension of the greatest Taylor Ports. There are no tangible faults. It remains a wonderful mature Port cut from a similar cloth as a 1966 Bordeaux inasmuch that it is conservative and masculine. Yet, it is fresh and precocious towards the finish. (NM)