Fortified wines get forgotten in the summer. As temperatures rise, we instinctively reach for crisp whites, rosé, or beer, while bottles of Port, Sherry, and Madeira remain firmly associated with winter indulgence.

Yet this broad and diverse category extends far beyond rich, sweet after-dinner wines.

Many of its finest expressions are dry, savoury, and refreshingly high in acidity, making them ideal aperitifs and remarkably versatile partners at the table.

Unsurprisingly, most originate in some of Europe's hottest wine-growing regions, where locals have long enjoyed them alongside simple seasonal dishes.

Here's where to start.

White Port, Portugal

Cocktail lovers would do well to rediscover White Port. Produced in Portugal's Douro Valley from indigenous grape varieties such as Gouveio and Malvasia Fina, fermentation is stopped by the addition of aguardente, a neutral grape spirit, preserving natural grape sugar and raising the alcohol to around 20%.

The result is a wine with ripe stone fruit flavours, dried herbs, and subtle nutty complexity from barrel ageing.

Served chilled, it makes an excellent aperitif in its own right.

Better still, try the Porto Tónico, Portugal's favourite summer serve.

Mix one part White Port with two parts tonic water over plenty of ice, then garnish with a wedge of citrus, a slice of peach, and a sprig of mint.

Refreshing, aromatic, and effortlessly elegant.

Sercial Madeira, Portugal

Madeira deserves serious attention in the warmer months.

Produced on the subtropical Atlantic island of the same name, these fortified wines are renowned for their complex, oxidative character and remarkable acidity.

Sercial is the driest of Madeira's styles and is particularly refreshing in warm weather. Served cold, it offers flavours of lemon peel, toasted nuts, and dried herbs, balanced by a searing acidity that keeps you coming back.

Pair it with salted pistachios, charcuterie, and tangy goat's cheese, and it becomes the ultimate sundowner.

Fino & Manzanilla Sherry, Spain

Head to Jerez in southern Spain and you'll find Fino and Manzanilla, summer drinking at its finest.

Made from Palomino and aged beneath a layer of living yeast known as flor, they develop wonderfully savoury flavours of bread dough, almonds, sea spray, and a briny quality reminiscent of a dirty martini.

At just 15% ABV, Fino is among the lightest fortified wines available. Serve it ice cold and drink it fresh, as this is not a wine to keep in the cellar.

Lay your table with olives, anchovies, salty crisps, and a free-poured Fino, and you'll be transported straight to a balmy evening in Andalucia.

Marsala Vergine, Sicily

Sicily's famous fortified wine is too often dismissed as a cooking ingredient. In reality, the wines are incredibly complex and age-worthy.

The finest dry examples, such as Marsala Vergine, are serious yet refreshing wines. Serve chilled alongside bottarga pasta or grilled fish with spiced couscous.

The combination of nutty depth, bright acidity, and savoury character makes it an unexpected and sophisticated dinner companion.

The golden rule for summer fortified: go dry, serve cold, pair with something salty, and drink in the sun.

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History fills your eyes at Seppeltsfield. Barrels storing 147 continuous vintages of Seppeltsfield Para tawny fill the Centenary Cellar. It’s a collection that’s unrivalled in the world of wine, all housed under one old tin roof in the Barossa, Australia.

History fills your nose, too. An incredibly rich melange of heady aromas permeates the cellar, leaching slowly from the oak barrels as an estimated 3% of their contents evaporate into the atmosphere each year.

But history’s most delicious secrets are revealed once you taste the unctuous, concentrated nectar that remains within these old casks. The wines show impossible layers of complexity, compressed within interlocking and sometimes contradictory sweet and tart flavours that unfurl and adhere to your palate.

They are truly unique.

Tasting a legacy

To celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Seppelt family establishing Seppeltsfield in the western Barossa ranges, Decanter was invited with selected media and winemakers to taste all of the Para Centenary tawnies – a continuous line of 48 wines, stretching from 1878 to this year’s new release, the 1926 vintage.

It’s a remarkable legacy handed down by Oscar ‘Benno’ Seppelt, who had the foresight to lay down a single 500-litre puncheon of his finest fortified from the 1878 vintage, with instructions that it not be issued for 100 years.

This gesture marked the launch of the magnificent Seppeltsfield bluestone cellar in 1878, a sturdy three-level monument designed and built in 1866 by Benno’s father, Joseph Seppelt, who had brought the family from Silesia in 1849 and established the vineyards in 1851.

Vintage snapshots

Highlights within the historic tawny collection are extraordinary – none more dazzling than the inaugural 1878 Para. This is the rarest of vinous marvels, retaining freshness and vitality but with extraordinary layered complexity in subtle flavours and bewitching nuances.

Also sitting within the top tier of Para Centenary examples is the new release – 1926 Para – showing such vibrancy and intensity with its high, sweet perfume yet deepest baritone notes in the flavour profile.

Rather than provide a narrative about an evolution of a style, the historical tasting highlighted significant outliers – such as the impossibly thick and viscous 1918 Para as almost a parody of the super-concentrated style, or the 1907 Para with especially sharp acidity, and the outrageously dense 1894 Para.

It proved that ancient fortified wines do not settle into a homogenised sameness, but instead show distinctive historical vintage snapshots.

Old vines & historic homestead

History is writ large at Seppeltsfield. It speaks through the estate’s original buildings – from the three-bedroom Seppelt family homestead around which the winery was constructed, to the gravity-fed cellar constructed in 1888.

This was decommissioned in the 1980s but reinstated for winemaking from the 2010 vintage.

It is also evident in the vineyards – especially the Grenache bush vines. First planted in 1855, these were replanted in 1958 as contoured rows that hug the western side of Seppeltsfield estate.

They form the backbone of Seppeltsfield fortified wine production, along with old Shiraz and Mourvèdre vines, although precise percentages of each variety in Para tawny was not recorded until the 1980s.

The creation of Seppeltsfield Para in 1878 is also tied to the historical foundation of Australian wine, which thrived on the success of fortified wine production from the colony’s earliest years.

When Joseph Seppelt arrived in the Barossa, he planned to continue farming tobacco, which had made him prosperous in Silesia, but instead he found growing grapes more favourable and soon set about ambitious expansion that made Seppeltsfield a key Barossa producer.

Legacy of success

Seppeltsfield Para was produced as a statement of the family’s success, a gesture continued on an annual basis through successive winemakers – and eventually different owners.

The Seppelt family sold their shares in 1984 and the winery passed through several corporate ownerships until the Randall Wine Group took control of the estate and its cellars in 2009.

Para Centenary tawny is still nurtured by many hands. Three Seppeltsfield winemakers were present at the tasting – including original family descendent Charlie Seppelt – yet modestly play down their role.

‘These are not my wines,’ says James Godfrey, who joined Seppeltsfield in 1978 and became chief fortified winemaker until Foster’s Group sold Seppeltsfield in 2007. ‘I was fortunate enough to watch them develop and protect them – and for that, I feel enormously privileged.’

For Godfrey, a key to the consistency of Para tawny quality is the spirit chosen to fortify the wine – a grape spirit produced from Seppeltsfield’s own still from 1878 to 1978, when Godfrey closed down its production.

He then oversaw the selection of a complementary spirit from Barossa distillery Tarac, which continues to provide the same spirit to Seppeltsfield.

Preserving the past

The need for consistency and honouring traditional methods is not lost on Seppeltsfield chief winemaker Fiona Donald.

‘We are only custodians.’ she says. ‘Every vintage tells its own significant story, and it’s our duty to ensure that this is preserved – and that the historic Para Centennial Collection will remain relevant to fine wine collectors of the future.’

Most Para Centenary tawnies comprise a single puncheon, and many now contain only about 150 litres of highly concentrated wine.

Donald examines their condition during annual inventories, and decants some into 300-litre hogshead casks to help preserve their freshness.

However, this brings its own set of challenges, with key older vintages at such tiny volumes they can no longer be preserved safely in large-format oak barrels.

Several of the most popular old releases – some down to 40 litres or less, including the Para vintages from 1885, 1884, 1881, 1880, 1879 and 1878 – are now stored in glass air-tight vessels, which has fundamentally changed the wines.

While they still show remarkable agility and focused clarity, much of the dense viscosity and deepest flavour layers have been removed with the complex molecules that drop and settle in a dark sediment layer at the bottom of each barrel.

The absence of continued interaction with oxygen from the oak barrel also affects colour and texture.

‘Tawnies are aerobic beasts, and if they don’t interact with oxygen, they change,’ explains Godfrey.

Fortifying the future

Examining these glass-stored wines raised important discussion points for the Seppeltsfield winemaking team about how best to preserve Para wines beyond 100 years.

One thought is to contain the remaining volumes in small oak casks and store them in a temperature-controlled space, which would prevent further heat evaporation but not remove complex flavour compounds from the solution.

No decision has yet been made.

The previous complete comparative tasting of Para was led by Godfrey in 2003, to mark the 25th anniversary of the first Para Centenary release.

The recent tasting went further, also providing a rare view of future Para centenary releases in progress, showing decade-by-decade development from the 1926 vintage through to the juvenile 2016 vintage.

It reinforced Benno Seppelt’s genius decision to hold this wine in barrel for 100 years, to achieve perfect balance between concentration, complexity and vitality that cannot be contrived in younger fortified wines.

175th anniversary tasting: top wines

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For many, the Douro’s fortified wines are synonymous with red grapes. The region’s viticulture, however, has a more complex history, with field blends dotted with white varieties.

Mostly harvested together, they played a balancing role in red Port and contributed to its complexity and ageworthiness. White grapes-only vineyards, and hence white grapes-only Port, accounted for a minimal share of production.

Beyond viticulture and tradition, another factor was at play: with many Port shippers also trading in Sherry, the latter made up the ‘white’ share of their portfolio. Focusing on red Port meant a clear commercial message and a neat split.

Houses with a historical specialism in white Port – notably Kopke – remained curious outliers. Then, the turn of the third millennium brought a new generation of winemakers and blenders to the fore.

Both Tiago Alves de Sousa, the fifth generation at the helm of his family’s winery, and Carlos Alves, director of viticulture and oenology at Kopke, agree that this influx of new blood was a decisive factor in white Port’s recent rise.

For Alves, the white category’s rapid evolution is woven into the similarly impressive development of Douro still wines. ‘It meant a greater understanding of the potential of different varieties and of how they perform in specific terroirs. And a major realisation has been that the Douro is a region of great whites,’ he says.

Alves de Sousa agrees: ‘This exploration, through the lens of Douro [still, unfortified] wines, meant greater awareness of the potential of each variety, some being more aromatic, others more structured, and so on.’

‘The incredible evolution of the white category is the best thing that happened in Port in the 21st century’

Tiago Alves de Sousa

Necessary changes

Technical precision, stylistic focus, curiosity about the potential of old, often overlooked, stocks of white Port and a desire to experiment and test Port’s limits have all seen white Port grow in both quality and diversity.

The IVDP (Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto), which regulates wine production in the region, took notice and, in 2007, introduced a much-needed update to the regulations by creating age-indication categories for white Port (similar to those for red tawny).

‘It was a necessary change that also created more interest, among both producers and consumers,’ Alves says. ‘The incredible evolution of the white category is the best thing that happened [in Port] in the 21st century,’ says Alves de Sousa, whose family also has a long, maverick tradition of producing the style.

It reflects, he says, an overall increase in quality and a reconnection with the region’s traditions – while also revealing a fresher side of Port.

Indeed, white Port has developed along two parallel paths: expressively aromatic, fruit-driven styles, with little to no maceration, produced as ideal ingredients for Port & Tonic, Portugal’s favourite aperitif; and more structured, complex iterations, often with some skin-contact during fermentation, designed as components for age-indicated blends or, less frequently, colheita (single-harvest) bottlings.

The following selection showcases this exciting diversity. For those of us for whom a bottle of white Port is a fridge-door staple, it’s exciting to see the category truly coming to life.

18 delicious white Ports:

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The Port industry is experiencing a quick and exciting transformation. While many producers are producing ever-more characterful and balanced wines, they remain fearlessly committed to history and tradition – in the cellar as well as on the table.

Nothing is more evocative of the endurance of traditions than Christmas celebrations. And the festive season is the time of year when Port is allowed to shine brightly on the dinner table – and under the Christmas tree. Port makes for such a stylish and thoughtful gift – mostly as a companion to the season’s luscious cheese spreads.

However, making the most out of this flagship coupling is not as straightforward as it may seem.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Port wine is its complex diversity; the multiple styles, the intricate terroirs along the meandering banks of the Douro and the identity of each Port house which is translated into an incredible array of wines.

This in turn means that there isn’t a glass of Port suitable for all cheeses – if you want to enjoy the full gamut of flavours and textures in both or either, you’ll need to embark on a pairing journey.

In other cheese and wine pairing articles we’ve explained why one of the main enemies of milk-based foods is tannins (hence why we suggest that a full-bodied, aged white, in lieu of red, is a much better go-to pairing for cheese platters). It follows that a Vintage Port, with its luscious fruit and assertive tannins, will easily overpower the delicate aromatics of a brie or the creaminess of a Camembert.

So does one need to forego that special bottle of Port saved for Christmas dinner? Absolutely not. It’s all about embracing complexity and enjoying the fun of exploring both Ports and cheeses. Use it as an excuse to open more bottles and expand your festive cheese spread!

Happy endings, better beginnings

The first myth worth debunking is that you need to save your Port for the end of the meal. Some Port styles are best suited for other parts of your festive meals. Not least as a stage setting aperitif; nothing more refreshing and delicious than a white Port & Tonic. Experiment with different white Ports, mixers and toppings served alongside canapés.

Substantial starters can also benefit from a Port companion. A starter of foie gras with pickled walnuts paired with an old Vintage Port is the stuff of dreams. It cuts right through the fatty richness of the dish while joining in an harmonious dialogue of earthy flavours.

And onto the pièce de résistance: the acidity and subtle nuttiness of slightly aged Tawny (ten or 20 years old) will enhance your goose and turkey, especially if served with a rich gravy or cranberry sauce.

Further aged Tawnys and aged Whites, on the other hand, are perfect alongside chocolate or caramel-based desserts.

Decanter Premium is the ideal last-minute gift for wine lovers

Battle of equals

Festive moments are often punctuated by Vintage Ports from meaningful years. However, as mentioned above, when it comes to food pairing you’ll need to tread carefully due to the aromatic and tannic power of these wines.

Creamy, soft, mild cheeses will see its fat bind unpleasantly with the tannins. What you need is a powerful cheese to match. Aged, hard and spicy cheeses – such as aged pecorino, aged Cheddar, Lincolnshire Poacher, aged Comté or Parmigiano-Reggiano – will offer the perfect counterpoint in both flavour and texture. ‘[Vintage] is a favourite style, and one that people often resolve for special occasions,’ says Filipe Wang, sommelier of the JNcQUOI group (multiple locations in Portugal). ‘What we’re considering here is matching strengths.’

Intense – non-creamy – blue cheeses, such as thievery Christmassy, much-loved Stilton or matured Roquefort, will also have a great match in the deep juicy fruit and balsamic nuances of Vintage Port.

The key, common denominator in all these cheeses is salt, ‘I would favour young Vintages which have really strong tannins – strong, salty cheeses will balance them perfectly,’ Says Wang. ‘The saltiness [of the cheeses] is important; it’s the perfect counterpoint to the tannins.’

Add some dried cranberries, glazed orange peel, prunes or walnuts to the mix to take the pairing to the next level.

Here comes the White

One of the most exciting and fast-evolving styles of Port comes in multiple hues of amber. White Port (of which we explored an exciting selection in our December 2025 issue) can deliver both the fruity allure and zesty twist needed for a perfect Port & Tonic as well as – in the aged categories – incredible complexity, luscious nuttiness, intense orchard fruit (both fresh and dried) and a long finish with lingering honey and spice.

White Ports make for perfect companions for softer, creamier cheeses. ‘A young Extra Dry with goat’s cheeses – which tend to have more acidity and a fresher, sometimes citric, finish – will be a really good combination,’ says Wang. ‘The wine’s acidity and fruity profile will match the delicate profile of the cheese.’ Brie, Camembert, Wigmore or young Crotin will also have a good match in a young White Port. More intense counterparts – such as St Jude, Reblochon or St Marcellin – will be best alongside a White Colheita.

Tawny – the sweet spot

One of Port’s finest styles, Tawny, covers a quite wide array of profiles depending on how long the wines have aged in barrel. ‘I personally like to match cheeses, especially those with a nutty, slightly sweet finish – 18-month Gryere for example – with ten and 20 year old Tawnys,’ says Wang. ‘30 [year olds] and above are too concentrated. I wouldn’t recommend having them with cheese at all – I think they’re best enjoyed with a dessert or, better even, a cigar.’

Some fresh grapes, membrillo (quince paste) and roasted winter nuts are perfect add-ons to a Tawny and cheese combination.

Creative versatility

If you’re on a budget (aren’t we all!?) and/or don’t want to open more than one bottle of Port there are reliable all-rounders you can rely on. The absence of tannins and fine acidity of a White Port and the filigree nuttiness of a 20 year old Tawny makes them the best bets for ideal all-rounders, that will cope with the different palate tension of cheeses (fat, salt, acidity, umami).

The ultimate rule is, however, that you drink your favourite Port, surrounded by your favourite people. And you might want to make Port a source of comfort and a welcome treat all year round – Port surely deserves a place at the table beyond the festive period.

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The world’s longest continuing library of vintage fortified wine has issued its latest chapter, with Australia’s Seppeltsfield launching a 1925 Para Vintage Tawny.

Following a tradition established by pioneer Barossa Valley winemaker Oscar ‘Benno’ Seppelt, who first laid down a barrel of vintage fortified in 1878 with instructions not to issue it for 100 years, the 1925 Para Vintage Tawny is released on 20 February 2025.

The 48th consecutive annual release of Seppeltsfield’s 100-year-old vintage tawny coincides with the anniversary of the Seppelt family taking residence in their western Barossa homestead at Seppeltsfield in 1851, having migrated from Silesia earlier that year.

Seppeltsfield remains the home of the Seppeltsfield Centennial Collection – the world’s only unbroken lineage of single vintage tawny. Each wine has spent a minimum of 100 years in oak barrels, within the Centennial Cellar at Seppeltsfield,

before being released to the market.

Historic wines

The first Para Tawny laid down by Benno Seppelt in 1878 comprised a single 500-litre puncheon. In the late 1970s, Para Tawny stocks were increased to four puncheons for each vintage. Since Warren Randal took over as proprietor of Seppeltsfield in 2009, eight puncheons of tawny from each vintage are reserved.

However, the 1925 vintage comprised only a single puncheon, and about 150 litres of this wine remains, due to around 3% volume being lost each year to evaporation.

Seppeltsfield chief winemaker, Fiona Donald, examines many of these historic wines during annual inventories to check their condition. She often decants them into smaller 300-litre hogshead casks to help preserve their freshness. It was during this process 18 months ago that she was struck by the quality and arresting personality of the 1925 vintage.

The 1925 vintage

‘It’s a wow wine,’ she said. ‘When I first started working with Para Vintage Tawny 16 years ago, I assumed that all wines of such profound age would look the same – and this is completely incorrect. The personality of each wine is framed by each different vintage, which is very accurately captured in this incredible fortified time capsule.’

The 1925 vintage is powerfully defined, with an assertive, confident personality: opening with bold notes of coffee and molasses, drizzled with a film of wild honey. The palate entry is electric – surprisingly sharp and alert for a 100-year-old wine, filling the palate with technicolour complexity that is uplifted and propelled by an undercurrent of acidity. Its richness is measured and tempered by clean, sweet notes – but it’s the deep strata of layers that intrigue.

An expansive mid-palate has dense fruitcake intensity, showing brandied raisin character over a bed of dark nutty notes: walnut, roasted hazelnut and scorched almond. A bite of Seville orange peel adds tension, introducing a hint of tight bitterness at counterpoint to the generosity of the wine’s ample, sweet belly and lively pinch of nutmeg.

The seamless meld of luscious Shiraz, Grenache and Mourvedre components (percentages of each grape variety used in the blend were not recorded at vintage) have darkened with age, showing a rich mahogany tone in the glass, framed by a vibrant amber rim.

Vintage variation

This new release stands in stark difference to recent Para Vintage Tawny releases. The 1922 vintage shows darker, savoury flavour tones with sharp green hazelnut liqueur framed by the bite of dried wild herbs. While the 1923 vintage had ample fruitiness that mirrored the comforting generosity of luscious Christmas pudding.

Such striking contrasts confirm Donald’s belief that vintage variation plays a significant role in each 100-year-old fortified wine.

‘Every vintage tells its own significant story, and it’s our duty to ensure that this is preserved – and that the historic Centennial Collection will remain relevant to fine wine collectors of the future,’ she explained.

The scarcity of Para Vintage Tawny amplifies the value of the treasure contained within each 100ml glass flask, which looks more like an exotic perfume vessel than a wine bottle. Each flask is hand-filled to order, then numbered and authenticated for collectors, bearing the signatures of Seppeltsfield proprietor and MD Randall and friend of the winery Bill Seppelt, the great-great-grandson of winery founders Joseph and Johanna Seppelt.

The wine is packaged in a latched black timber box that’s lined with black velvet and has information printed inside the lid that includes its bottling date. Its specific bottle number is attached to a neck tag on the bottle, while a QR code provides a link to tasting notes.

Seppeltsfield 1925 100-Year-Old Para Vintage Tawny is also available online from seppeltsfield.com.au for AU$1,800, with shipping possible worldwide. In the US it is available via Legend Australian Wine Imports ($1,800).

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When, in mid-July 2022, the highest temperature ever recorded in Portugal (47ºC) was measured in Pinhāo, in the heart of the Douro Valley, few thought the year would yield wines of note. However, the harvest brought in healthy, small berries, showing remarkable flavour definition and a surprising freshness.

After two years in the cellar, some of the Douro’s leading Port houses acknowledged the singularity of their best plots by announcing the release of several Vintage single-quinta and special vineyard selections from the troubled year.

Although not a classic, widely-declared Vintage, the 2022 bottlings show an incredible sense of place, notable aromatic nuance and refined tannic frameworks.

With insights from head winemakers and master blenders, the extended overview of the growing season and its intriguing, perhaps surprising, outcome raises interesting questions about the ongoing shifts within the Port trade, the challenges of climate change and the sometimes competing priorities behind Vintage declarations.

Above all, it delves into the remarkable wines produced in the scorching year. Quinta do Noval’s Nacional confidently stands out; the storied plot produced a beautiful wine, with depth and concentration offset by mineral precision. Its drinkability upon release is outstanding but the wine will surely improve in decades to come.

Other wines of note include the fifth edition of Capela do Vesúvio – hailing from three small plots within the Vesúvio estate and truly evocative of schist soils, wild herbs and summer rains – and the inaugural release of Taylor’s Sentinels.

For those sceptical about the dynamism of the Port industry, the 2022 Vintage is a good rebuttal.

Producers were able to assert the singularity of their best vineyards and celebrate the resilience of both vines and men through wines that despite – or rather, while – swerving the paradigm of a ‘classic’ Vintage display the specific allure of their parent micro-terroirs.

Read the full overview, scores and tasting notes for Vintage Port 2022 – now on Decanter Premium

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It’s now a worn cliché to say that good winemakers are those able to produce a good wine from a bad vintage.

Perhaps it could be added that a superior vineyard is able to withstand severe climatic conditions and still deliver outstanding fruit.

Both statements seem validated by the Vintage Ports from the troubled 2022 growing season; few but characterful, with some outstanding examples showing off some of the Douro Valley’s best sites.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for the key Vintage Port 2022 releases

Delicious imperfection

Although overall lacking the concentration and robust structure of a so-called classic vintage, there is an aromatic nuance and vibrancy to the 2022 releases that make them particularly expressive.

‘Imperfect [Vintage] Ports make perfect Tawnys,’ said David Guimaraens, technical director and head winemaker at The Fladgate Partnership (Taylor’s, Fonseca and Croft) at the London tasting that marked the release of the 2022 Vargellas, Sentinels and Guimaraens.

Imperfect growing seasons, on the other hand, can yield seductively quirky Vintage expressions that speak vividly of their place. It’s therefore good to see that albeit not a ‘classic’ vintage, producers allowed some 2022 offspring to become Vintage rather than future Tawny elements.

If blending a Tawny is the art of correcting complementary imperfections, the decision to release a Vintage is the acknowledgement of a potential that deserves not to be interfered with.

This potential is usually measured as a function of cellaring longevity; perhaps early-drinking pleasure should also be part of the equation. The hallmark of the best wines tasted below is their energy and approachability, with stand outs showing equal amounts of depth and structure, filigree aromas and concentration, muscle and elegance.

Future considerations

Declarations always involve complex decisions not only about the potential quality and longevity of the wines but also on market conditions and stock management – the role of the Port blender is as much about ‘management of futures’ as it is about technical expertise and alchemic intuition.

So I wonder if the limited declaration was not a product of caution and long-term planning, as much as of the admittedly challenging cards dealt by the 2022 growing season.

Especially in the face of increasing demand for old Tawny (for context, according to Guimaraens Taylor’s sold 20,000 litres of 20 Year Old Tawny in 1990; last October 2024 figures were already at 160,000 litres) and the wholesome Vintage offering following back-to-back declarations from 2015-2018.

Challenging conditions

The hot, dry year had growers and winemakers on the edge of their seats until harvest.

‘The 2022 growth cycle was one of the most challenging in the Douro,’ reads the report of Symington Family Estates (SFE), ‘with the three months before the harvest being among the hottest and driest ever recorded.’

Christian Seely, managing director of Quinta do Noval, also reported on the testing conditions: ‘2022 was a year of extremes, both very hot and very dry. Rainfall was only 364 mm during the growing season, 27 mm below the 1970-2000 average.

‘We experienced recurrent heatwaves, in early July and in early August, with prolonged periods of temperatures over 40°C, with a peak of 45,5°C in mid-July.’

Fighting fit

On the other hand, record temperatures and drought meant that disease pressure was virtually absent. Although smaller and fewer, the berries were healthy and, added Seely, ‘remarkably, the vines remained surprisingly green and free from water stress’.

Likewise, the team at SFE, ‘were astonished by how well the vines performed under such unprecedented conditions. While the grape bunches and berries were smaller than usual, they delivered concentrated wines with lifted aromas and remarkable purity of fruit.’

The challenging season allowed the best sites to show their greater resilience and consistent ability to deliver quality and complexity. Virtually all the releases are therefore either single quintas or exclusive vineyard selections – not least of Noval’s Nacional plot and Vesúvio’s Capela.

The freshness and aromatic profile delivered by these vineyards in such a hot vintage is indeed remarkable. Whether the plants will struggle in the subsequent vintages remains to be seen – the 2024 harvest seems to indicate they are successfully coping, with Guimaraens anticipating a possible wide declaration in 2026.

Sculpted by terroir

Sense of place and purity were the common denominators across Vintage 2022 declarations.

‘At harvest, the red wines had a very clean aroma and very bright, rich colours,’ explained Carlos Alves, head winemaker and master blender at Sogevinus (Kopke, Burmester, Barros and Cálem).

‘After gaining further vividness in the cellar, the group declared ‘a vintage for all four of these single Quintas [Sāo Luis, Arnozelo, Cálem and Barros], each exhibiting individual differences and representing a sense of place.’

This is indeed a Vintage collection where the uniqueness and resilience of specific terroirs really came into focus.

Taylor’s Vargellas displays its trademark florality with vividness and allure; Burmester’s Arnozelo has a perfectly outlined herbaceous savouriness; Dow’s Senhora da Ribeira displays a distinct powdery minerality with its tannins covered in graphite; Sandeman’s Seixo is easily spotted for the elegant smoky veil cloaking the dark fruit.

Vintage Port 2022 at a glance

Growing season: Extremely dry with a succession of heatwaves in July and August. Throughout June, July, and August, 58% of the days saw temperatures exceed 35ºC, with 23 days recording temperatures above 39ºC. A record temperature of 47ºC was measured in Pinhāo on 15 July.

Overall character of the wines: Great aromatic nuance and sense of plaice, with the wines reflecting the characters that make their parent vineyards distinct. Refined tannic frameworks, purity of fruit and floral/herbal details. Recurring sense of freshness, both as a product of the fruit definition and lively acid.

Stand-out releases: Quinta do Noval Nacional; Capela da Quinta do Vesúvio; Taylor’s Sentinels.

Drinking window: The Vintage 2022 Ports will benefit from some years in bottle and will surely be at their best 10 to 20 years from now. The best expressions, however, show an incredible vividness and aromatic nuance that deserve to be appreciated immediately.

Pick of the bunch

Among the Vintage 2022 releases, Quinta do Noval’s Nacional confidently stands out. The unique, dramatic plot produced a remarkable wine, with depth and concentration offset by mineral precision.

It shows an alluring freshness and drinkability while also having the power and concentration to improve in decades to come – a great accomplishment that reflects the singular, and somewhat mystifying, character of the ungrafted vineyard.

But there is no shortage of intriguing, limited-production labels for Port collectors to seek out.

A collector’s bounty

SFE released the fifth edition of Capela do Vesúvio (following 2007, 2011, 2016 and 2017), hailing from three small plots within the Vesúvio estate: Capela, Escola and Vale da Teja. A truly beautiful wine that couldn’t be more evocative of schist soils, wild herbs and summer rains.

From The Fladgate Partnership, the inaugural bottling of Taylor’s Sentinels did not disappoint. It’s produced with fruit from selected vineyards in the Pinhāo Valley, planted across four estates (Terra Feita, Junco, Casa Nova, and Eira Velha).

Located within the original 1756 demarcation, its name references the granite pillars (‘marcos de feitoria‘) once used to delineate the perimeter of ‘highest-quality Port’ areas.

The shipper plans to release Sentinels in non-classical Vintages, allowing those best-performing sites to stand out, very much like a single quinta.

Meanwhile, as SFE is yet to release half of its 2022 single quintas; the vintage will surely unveil other pleasant surprises. With Capela da Quinta do Vesúvio, Quinta do Vesúvio, Dow’s Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira (all tasted and scored below) and Graham’s Quinta do Tua Vinhas Velhas (exclusive for the brand’s Matriarca club members and at the Graham’s Lodge in Vila Nova de Gaia) already on the market, SFE have held back four other bottlings.

Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos, Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim, Warre’s Quinta da Cavadinha and Cockburn’s Quinta dos Canais will remain in their respective cellars for future release.

For those sceptical about the dynamism of the Port industry, the 2022 Vintage is a good rebuttal.

As the Douro region goes through important challenges – both climatic and socioeconomic – and significant shifts in the structure of the wine trade, it’s encouraging to see producers asserting the singularity of vineyards and celebrating the resilience of both vines and men.

Vintage Port 2022 – key releases scored and tasted:

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Starting one’s journey in the world of Port can be as daunting as it quickly becomes captivating. The variety of styles across producers and categories, as well as the identity of each vintage and estate – reflecting the nuances of the Douro river meanders and valley slopes – places it among the world’s most fascinating wine appellations.

But it can be difficult to decide where to start one’s discovery – or how to properly explore the diversity of producers without breaking the bank.

It’s often recommended that Port neophytes and explorers seek out the 20 Year Old Tawny category…

Scroll down to see notes and scores for 18 delectable 20 Year Old Tawny Ports

Blended from different lots aged in cask for an average of two decades, 20 Year Olds capture the quality of the underlying fruit and the ageing conditions in a particular cellar, as well as the decisions of winemakers and blenders.

‘If Vintage Port is the ultimate expression of a particular year, the 20 Year Old Tawny is the skill of the blender in marrying components from different years to produce a perfectly balanced aged tawny,’ explains David Guimaraens, technical director of the Fladgate Partnership, overseeing the production for the Taylor’s, Fonseca and Croft labels.

Sweet spot

While 10 Year Old Tawny retain more primary fruit, and do not so vividly yet reflect style and development, it’s after two decades that the identity of the cellar comes into perfect focus.

‘During this period, the wine acquires the profile of the house, under unique conditions, in the cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia [across the river estuary from Porto] and/or Douro,’ says Carlos Alves, winemaker and master blender at Sogevinus (Kopke, Burmester, Barros and Cálem).

‘A 20 Year Old Port already reflects in its essence all the complexity of a tawny wine that has aged in wood – it has already entered the “adulthood” of an aged Port.’

Guimaraens adds: ‘The 20 Year Old is old enough to capture the expression of the location in which the Ports age, and the choices blenders make as to how they age and how they blend the component Ports.’ On the other hand, ‘it is also young enough to still express the origin of the Ports set aside for a particular house style’.

Planning ahead

Tawny Ports are also a testament to the blender’s ability to preserve stock for future blends, ensuring not just contemporary but also future quality and consistency. Achieving the balance, continuity and sustainability of a desired style relies on a complex set of complementary skills – logistical as much as oenological.

Crafting a 20 Year Old Tawny today requires the ability to create the conditions to carry on producing them in decades to come. ‘It is certainly quite stressful – but that’s the magic of being a Port winemaker,’ concludes Guimaraens.

‘We work with what others left us while being mindful of what we leave behind for others to carry on this beautiful craft.’

A democratic style

The selection below reflects the variety that 20 Year Old Tawny – and Port as a whole – offers, from mellower, honeyed examples to brighter iterations with citrus and spice at the forefront. (Don’t forget to chill them appropriately to enjoy their full complexity and vibrancy.)

These are wines that do not follow the logic or timescale of trends. Alves explains that the main goal is to ‘preserve the quality and [character of the] blend, as these are the elements that hold the house’s identity’, adding that ‘it is this identity that makes Port wines unique’.

There is, however, an interesting consistency of price and many excellent 20 Year Olds, as shown here, are available for less than £50. As the appetite for aged tawny increases – with 40- and 50 Year Old releases quickly snapped up in the collecting and investment markets – the 20 Year Old is an affordable way to enter the category, while exploring a particularly representative expression of a house’s production.

‘20 Year Old Tawny is the most democratic style of Port,’ concludes Guimaraens. ‘It offers an entry point to enjoy the finest Ports at approachable prices.’

The magic of 20 Year Old Tawny: Indulge the senses

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There is a Port for all seasons if you know where to look. Often thought of as an after-dinner, fireside drink, Port can be enjoyed in multiple ways depending on the character of the wine.

There is a pyramid of different Port styles, from vibrant youthful ruby to venerable aged-tawny and vintage. Port is often thought of as a heavy winter drink, but aged tawnies, colheitas and mature vintage Ports can be supremely elegant and refined.

White Port and tonic (also known as Portonic) and tawnies (served slightly chilled) are just as well-suited for warm summer days as a ruby or a full-bodied LBV is for the winter months. Such wines have never been more in demand.

This style guide climbs the Port pyramid, surveying the latest trends and points you to the right Port for any occasion, winter or summer.

Ruby

Named after its youthful colour, a ruby Port will be a blend of wines from more than one year. It is aged in bulk for up to three years and bottled young to capture its strong, fiery personality.

Reserve

A blend of premium-quality wines often aged for slightly longer than a basic ruby before bottling: giving a rich, satisfying Port. A reserve tawny is a blended wine that has spent about seven years in wood. It can be excellent value compared to wines bottled with an indication of age.

Crusted

So-called because of the deposit (or ‘crust’) that the wine throws in bottle. Crusted Ports are a blend of wines from two or three harvests aged in large oak vats for two to four years (though surprisingly there is nothing in the regulations on this). Like a vintage Port, they are bottled without any fining or filtration. The only significant date on the label is the year of bottling. Most crusted Ports are ready to drink with five or six years of bottle age and will last for another decade. The British houses make a speciality of this style. Excellent value: crusted is poor man’s vintage Port!

White

Made from white grapes. Most are bottled young but some whites are capable of wood age. Those wines may now be bottled with the same age indications as tawny Ports or as a colheita (see below). White Port and tonic is a revitalsing summer drink, served with a twist of lemon and a sprig of mint. If you use an older wood-aged wine, your Portonic takes on the bitter-sweet character of a Negroni.

Pink

This style of Port was pioneered by Croft and has been adopted, not without controversy, by most shippers. It is made by cooling fermenting grape must, which has had minimal skin contact. Serve pink Port over ice or use as a mixer.

Cheese and Port matching guide

Late Bottled Vintage (LBV)

Late Bottled Vintage means just what it says on the label: wwine from a single year that’s bottled between four and six years after the vintage. It’s produced in much larger volumes than either classic vintage or single-quinta vintage (see below). Two different styles of LBV Port have emerged.

The modern style of LBV was founded by Taylor’s in the mid-1960s and quickly became a commercial success. These wines are aged in large vats and are subject to fining and filtration prior to bottling. This prevents the formation of a crust or sediment in bottle, which removes the need to decant.

During the 1990s there was a counter-trend towards so-called ‘traditional’ or unfiltered LBV. These wines are aged in the same way but bottled without any filtration. Unfiltered wines are more structured and full-bodied than LBVs that have been filtered. They have the capacity to age for five to 10 years in bottle. They are bottled with a driven cork – as opposed to the stopper cork for LBVs that are bottled for immediate drinking.

An LBV may also be sold as ‘bottle matured’: aged in bottle for a minimum of three years before their release. Warre’s and Smith Woodhouse have made a specialty of this style. The wines share something of the depth and character and maturity of a true vintage Port at a fraction of the price.

Vintage Port

Seen by many as the pinnacle of the Port pyramid. Many shippers have built (and occasionally destroyed) their international reputation on the back of vintage Port. The skill in making a great vintage Port comes from the strict selection of small lotes (parcels) of wine from the very finest locations made from grapes picked at optimum ripeness after an outstanding growing season. These grapes need to be very well worked during vinification, either foot-trodden in traditional stone lagares or increasingly subject to careful piston extraction or robotic treading. Graham’s 2000 was the first classic vintage Port to be partially made by robotic feet.

After the harvest these wines are monitored for a potential vintage. The decision to ‘declare’ a vintage is made independently by the shipper and it is not one that is taken lightly. There is no law about the regularity of Port vintages but there are usually three or four a decade. However, over the past decade there has been a string of fully or partially declared years including 2011, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Port vintage guide: 2000-2022

Port vintage guide: 1960-1999

Quantities are limited and a major shipper may declare anything from a few hundred cases to 15,000 cases depending on the year and circumstances. Sometimes the quantity declared is much less.

There is a recent trend towards declaring super-premium wines from a site-specific plot in a particular vineyard (often alongside a classic declaration). Quinta do Noval Nacional, from a tiny plot of ungrafted vines, is the historic prototype for this sub-category of wines. It now includes Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha, Graham’s Stone Terraces and Quinta de la Rosa’s Vale do Inferno. The total quantity declared of each wine is usually no more than 250 cases, and prices are commensurate. These are the ultimate collector’s wines!

Before a Port can be bottled as a vintage it must be submitted to the IVDP (Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto) for approval. This can happen anytime between 1 January and 30 September in the second year after the harvest. Once the wine has been bottled it continues to evolve slowly over a period of at least 15 to 20 years or more, before it is considered ready to drink.

Rather like the seven ages of man, vintage Port enjoys a short, fragrant bloom of youth before it shuts down and goes through 10 to 20 years of surly adolescence. Then it slowly emerges as an adult gaining in gravitas until it reaches its peak, often between 20 and 40 years of age.

For the finest wines the peak becomes a long plateau and old age may not be reached for 80 years or more. Anyone born in one of the great post-war vintages of 1945, 1955, 1963, 1966 and 1970 has a wine to accompany them for life!

Since the early 2000s, a dramatic improvement in the quality of the fortifying spirit (which, it is easy to forget, makes up 20% of the wine) has altered the flavour profile of vintage Port. The spirit being used to fortify vintage and single-quinta vintage Port has a much more vinous character than in the past.

This means that it interferes much less with the fruit in a young wine than the coarse, rather oily spirit used previously. Certainly recent declared vintages such as 2007 and 2011 are notable for the purity and clear expression of fruit, even at this early stage. David Guimaraens, head winemaker for The Fladgate Partnership, maintains that the transition from youth to maturity will be much smoother in future, with less of that awkward adolescent stage. This should make vintage Port easier to broach at an earlier stage but the best wines should still age for a lifetime.

Vintage port 2000 and 2003: Panel tasting results

Single-Quinta Vintage Port

With huge improvements in winemaking from the 1980s onwards, the production of a good vintage Port is much less of a hit-and-miss affair. Unless the year is a total washout (eg 1993 and 2002), wines of potential vintage quality can be made every year. Consequently wines from good years (in between declared vintages) are bottled by the major shippers as single-quinta vintage Port (SQVP). The same rules apply as to vintage Ports, the only difference being that the wines come from a single quinta or estate with the recommendation that they may be drunk earlier, after 10 rather than 20 years.

Without the collector’s cachet of a vintage Port, these wines are excellent value and by building up a vertical collection you can follow a specific Douro terroir. A handful of independent quintas are now producing their own SQVP nearly every year, along the lines of a Bordeaux château. Although this is a relatively new category, look out for properties that already have a good track record: Quinta do Vesúvio, Quinta de la Rosa, Quinta de Roriz, Quinta do Crasto, Quinta do Passadouro and Quinta do Vale Meão.

Aged Tawny

Sharing the pinnacle with vintage Port, it has been said that whereas vintage is the ‘king’ of Ports, tawny is the ‘queen’. The ageing process is of vital importance. While a vintage Port will mature for a short time in large wooden vats and then in bottle; tawnies will age for much longer in small casks before bottling. These casks, known as lodge pipes, have 600- to 640-litre capacity.

The wines undergo a steady process of controlled oxidation and esterification as the colour fades from deep, opaque ruby to orange-amber-tawny. The tasting and blending of an aged tawny is a continual process. Wines set aside initially are often marked with the year of the harvest (‘colheita’). But as the shipper makes up new blends followed by blends of blends, the characteristics of individual wines gradually meld into the house style.

Tawnies may be bottled with an indication of age: 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years old. Even older wines may be designated ‘Very Very Old Tawny’. The age designations are obviously approximations and all wines have to be submitted for tasting by the IVDP for approval.

I adore the intricacy and delicacy of a well-aged tawny. A 20 Year Old is my preference, for its complexity offset by freshness. But there are some increasingly good 30, 40 and 50 year old wines as well, that don’t seem to have sacrificed their balance with age.

Port shippers often opt to drink a gently chilled tawny after lunch in the heat of the Douro. Think of aged tawny as a summer alternative to a fireside glass of vintage or LBV.

Colheita

Meaning ‘harvest’ in Portuguese, colheita is a wine from a single year, aged in wood for a minimum of seven years before bottling. By this time the wine begins to take on the characteristics of a tawny. Most colheitas are aged for much longer and, with careful nurture, may be bottled after 50 or 100 years.

Two dates appear on the label: the year of harvest and the year of bottling. The latter is significant as the wine won’t generally improve in bottle – although after prolonged ageing in wood it won’t deteriorate quickly either.

Once the preserve of a select group of so called ‘Portuguese shippers’ (Barros, Burmester Cálem, Kopke, Krohn) colheitas have been taken up enthusiastically by the British shippers, sometimes bottled under the name ‘single harvest’. Serve colheitas cellar-cool, like a tawny.

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Want to find out how your birth-year fared? Or want to know which vintages are drinking well now? Our Port vintage guide has you covered.

We take a look at the vintages from 1960 to 2017, offering ratings for each year and advising whether the vintage is best to drink now or keep for ageing. Outstanding, widely declared vintages are highlighted, and specific weather conditions and their impact on grape quality and yields are detailed for each year. We also highlights some of the best wines for notable years.

Jump to the outstanding, widely declared vintages

2017 2016 20112007 2003  20001998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1992 19911985 1983 1982 1980 1977 19701966 1963 1960

2017

Drink/Keep

The most widely declared vintage to date, with outstanding quality and cellaring potential.

5/5

The fact that this was the first time that two vintages were consecutively widely declared is testament to the superlative quality of the 2017 crop. The growing season was extremely dry as well as, from the end of winter until harvest, very hot with various heat waves through spring and early summer. Intense, short summer storms caused further challenges. However, while yields were significantly reduced by these extreme weather conditions, quality was superb, with harvest bringing in a small but fantastic crop.

The resulting wines have vivid, deep fruit and a paired-down intensity, combining power with elegance and restraint. Sophisticated wines that will age well for decades to come.

2016

Drink/keep

Fantastic vintage, widely declared and with great ageing potential.

5/5

The rather unusual growing season started with a mild and wet winter, followed by an equally wet but oddly cold spring. A scorching, extremely dry summer ensued, with a rainy coda in September. These fluctuations challenged the vines, affecting yields. Quality, on the other hand, was superb: the grapes had concentration, complexity and aromatic nuance. The structure and robustness of the tannins, paired with their elegance and details was particularly noteworthy.

A vintage of concentrated, balanced wines, that will age beautifully.

2015

Drink/keep

An outstanding vintage, which was on the cusp of becoming legendary before being disrupted by intense heat spells.

4/5

A dry spring and early summer promised a healthy crop. However, one of the hottest Junes on record, followed by enduring scorching temperatures, placed vineyards under extreme stress and reduced yields, in some cases significantly. While Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca vines were able to cope and produce very good quality grapes, the other Douro varieties suffered and the grapes were mostly overripe and lacking balance.

While many leading houses declared the vintage, it is largely perceived as a harvest that never quite reached its full potential.

2014

Drink

The bumpy growing season, with significant disease pressure, did not yield consistently good fruit. The vintage went largely undeclared, with most of the crop used for blends and single quintas.

2/5

2013

Drink/Keep

Largely undeclared but with standout single-quinta wines.

3/5

The growing season was uneventful but a very rainy September disrupted harvest and had an impact on both yields and quality.

The vintage went largely undeclared. However, producers that harvested early were able to produce excellent single quintas with very good concentration and structure. A handful of houses released very small allocations of vintage expressions.

2012

Drink/Keep

An excellent vintage, perhaps underestimated due to outstanding quality of the preceding harvest.

5/5

Although extremely dry, the growing season was steady and cool. Yields were low – mostly due to water stress – but produced wines of great finesse, chiselled tannins, aromatic detail and defined fruit. A couple of top producers released vintage wines but most did not declare, releasing single quintas instead – a decision no doubt influenced by the 2011 declaration, rather than by lack of potential in 2012.

2011

Drink/Keep

Outstanding, universally declared vintage, combining elegance and rusticity.

5/5

A rainy winter, waa followed by a warm and dry spring, with patched mildew and hail. The mild and dry summer was disrupted by heat spikes leading to drought, which was mitigated by slime precipitation in late August and early September.

The plants that were able to respond to these many challenges yielded fruit of great quality, ultimately producing wines with elegant structure, nuanced aromas and vibrant acid. A year with a distinct personality and extraordinary balance, more rustic than 2007 and elegant than 2003.

2010

Drink

Intense rains followed by intense heat prevented the development of fruit with enough complexity to yield noteworthy wines.

2/5

2009

Drink/Keep

An excellent vintage, although not unanimously lauded. Declared by some, but not all, top producers.

4/5

Very dry growing season, which kicked off early following a warm early spring. An extremely hot summer catalysed early phenolic ripeness but water stress impacted negatively on yields.

The small crops predictably had outstanding concentration with deep, intense black fruit, silky but assertive tannins and enough acid to balance it all out. Both vintage and single-quinta releases have great cellaring potential.

2008

Drink

A good vintage, somewhat eclipsed by its landmark predecessor. Great vintage and single-quinta iterations.

5/5

A cold spring delayed budburst and flowering and cool temperatures continued throughout the growing season causing some worry among producers that grapes wouldn’t fully ripen. A timely heat spell allowed them to successfully achieve phenolic maturity while cool nights ensured an optimal retainment of acid.

The wines therefore showcase freshness, balance, vivid acid and vibrant, lifted fruit. Drink beautifully and, although some examples will be long-aged, the fine quality of this vintage suggests they will not hold as long as the 2007s.

2007

Drink/Keep

An absolutely superb vintage – the second mostly widely declared harvest to date.

5/5

The growing season started with significant disease pressure as a result of steady rains from November to February. This was somewhat mitigated by dry conditions in August and September. Mild temperatures throughout allowed grapes to ripen slowly and steadily, with the development of aromatic complexity and beautiful phenolic balance.

The wines stand out for their transparency, finesse, silky tannins and rick fruit offset by fragrant aromas. Although with great cellaring potential, many examples are already surprisingly approachable.

2006

Drink soon

Heat and hailstorms affected this inconsistent vintage with few good examples.

2/5

Tinta Barroca suffered particularly, affecting the overall balance of the blends and the character of many wines. The few noteworthy wines had deep black fruit and interesting balsamic nuances.

2005

Drink/Keep

An uneven vintage, plagued by heat and drought. Some producers declared, while others focused on characterful single-quinta wines.

4/5

More resilient vineyards were able to deliver small yields of very concentrated fruit, producing deep, intense, robustly structured wines that will cellar beautifully.

2004

Drink

Not a widely declared vintage but with great single-quinta iterations.

3/5

4/5 – Drink

The threat of rain into harvest season forced producers to make hard decisions on whether to harvest potentially underripe fruit early or lose the crop. The most fortunate decision-makers were able to work with vibrant fruit, subtly aromatic, with lovely acid and a fine tannic framework.

2003

Keep

The second widely declared vintage of the new century, not without its challenges.

5/5

Unusually high temperatures peaked in the end of July and beginning of August (45℃ during the day and 30℃ at night) and continued into harvest season. Some plants shutdown in late August but a spell of rain in early September provided relief and paved the way for an excellent harvest, with little but very concentrated grapes. These produced muscular, complex, tannic wines with great ageing potential.

Some exceptions, lacking acid and with overly ripe fruit, were unfortunate outliers.

2002

Drink soon

An underwhelming and double-faced vintage, with very different outcomes for producers, depending on crucial decisions on harvest date.

2/5

The vintage was evolving positively, with a dry winter, spring and summer, the latter with moderate heat. Early September rains provided relief and promised a good vintage. However, heavy rains followed, erasing hopes of a good crop for many producers.

Those who harvested earlier – most in Douro Superior – produced good to excellent wines.

2001

Drink

Although not widely declared (perhaps due to the previous standout crop), 2001 yielded fruit of good quality and significantly more quantity than 2000.

4/5

The wet winter created some disease pressure but was followed by a warm, dry, uneventful summer, supporting the slow and healthy development of the grapes. A long and late harvest – well into October – was disturbed by some rain towards the end.

The year therefore rewarded those who picked slightly earlier, and were able to produce the deep-coloured, structured wines this vintage is known for.

2000

Drink/Cellar

The turn of the millennium was marked by a so-called ‘legendary’ vintage, widely declared and highly sought after by collectors.

5/5

A dry and cold winter delayed budburst. It was followed by a warm February and March; April and May brought much-needed rains that created, however, the conditions for unwelcome coulure. The summer was warm and dry, allowing for the slow maturation of the grapes. Harvest started in late September, yielding small but excellent quality crops.

Overall, the wines of this vintage are superb, combining early-drinking appeal and incredible ageing potential. They stand out for the vibrancy and definition of the fruit.

The vintage summaries and ratings below were last reviewed by Richard Mayson in 2022. 

1999

Drink

Prospects of an excellent year dashed by rain. Good single-quinta wines from the Douro Superior.

2/5

1998

Drink

Small harvest. Some excellent single-quinta Ports for drinking in the medium term.

3/5

Vintage summary

A cool, wet spring and early summer slashed yields and induced mildew and oidium in many vineyards. After a period of unrelenting heat in high summer, a minute but potentially outstanding vintage appeared to be on the cards. Picking began in the Douro Superior on 14 September and by 24 September the harvest was underway. Unfortunately, the heavens opened at the same time, diluting sugar levels and turning a potentially great vintage into a curate’s egg: merely good in parts.

No major declaration, but some good, concentrated wines were produced by quintas in the Douro Superior, which picked before the rain.

1997

Drink

A widely declared vintage producing well-structured wines. Approachable now and for drinking over the next two decades.

4/5

Vintage summary

An uneven year in that an abnormally warm, dry spring led to an early burst of growth and then gave way to cool, wet weather in June and July. The heat returned in August and by mid-September grapes were showing good sugar levels and the harvest began in earnest. Apart from a localised downpour, picking continued without incident and it was clear that a good, possibly great, vintage was in prospect.

Apart from Croft and Delaforce, who opted for single-quinta Ports, all the major shippers declared in the spring of 1999. The most promising wines (combining elegance and structure) are those from well-situated quintas at lower altitudes in the Cima Corgo and these wines form the basis of the finest declared wines. A few wines are rather lean and one-dimensional but the best have solid, sinewy tannins and will age well for the long term. There is a strong similarity in style with 1983. Prices were up by around 30% on the highly acclaimed 1994s.

Best wines

• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Graham’s
• Niepoort
• Quinta da Corte (Delaforce)
• Quinta da Roeda (Croft)
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Noval Nacional

1996

Drink

A huge crop produced forward, fruit-driven single-quinta wines drinking over the medium term.

2.5/5

Vintage summary

The prolonged drought that had become quite desperate in parts of southern Portugal broke spectacularly in the winter of 1995/96. The winter deluge gave way to a mild spring and, with so much ground water, vines sprouted in all directions. Development was slow and as a result the harvest began late at the end of September and early October. Yields were vast but sugar levels remained on the low side and many of the wines tasted dilute.

The best Ports came from old, low yielding vines and a handful of quintas declared promising wines for drinking over the medium-term. Quinta do Noval Nacional (the first declaration of Nacional by the new owners) stands out as the only wine for the long term.

Best wines

• Quinta da Agua Alta (Churchill)
• Quinta Nossa Senhora do Carmo (Burmester)
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Quinta de la Rosa
• Quinta do Vesuvio

1995

Drink

A hot summer allowed a few producers to declare a vintage. Some good single-quinta wines.

2/5

Vintage summary

After a generally cool spring and early summer, August provided four weeks of unrelenting heat. In the Douro Superior, which is always the hottest and driest of the Douro’s three sub-regions, some growers began picking as early as mid-August. By 7 September the harvest was underway throughout much of the Douro region as grapes began to shrivel on the vine.

The extreme heat made for some rather coarse, burnt wines with roasted coffee notes, but the sheer jammy concentration of flavour justified a fully-fledged declaration for some. Barros, Burmester Krohn, Osborne, Noval Roses and Pocas declared outright, with the remainder opting for second label or single-quinta Ports. Drink over the medium-term.

Best wines

• Fonseca Guimaraens
• Quinta do Crasto
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta de la Rosa
• Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha (Taylor’s)
• Quinta do Vesuvio

1994

Drink

The start of the modern era for vintage Port, with outstanding wines that are ripe and well structured. May be approached now but the best will continue to improve.

4.5/5

Vintage summary

A wet winter brought an end to three years of drought, and when the sun began to shine in March and April the vines began to sprout in all directions. There was some concern when heavy rain fell in May but fortunately it was not unduly warm, and the unsettled conditions merely served to check the overall size of the crop.

From then on it was plain sailing all the way through to the harvest. The threat of rain in mid-September rekindled memories of 1993 (a quagmire) and a few growers panicked and harvested too early. The majority kept their nerve and by 20 September the grapes were fully ripe and picking was well underway. Winemakers were helped by cool, clear nights which served to slow down fermentations and the lagares took plenty of work.

It was clear as soon as the wines were run from the lagares that a fine vintage was in the bag, and the shippers could hardly conceal their glee at the prospect of a major vintage declaration. By the time the wines were offered in the spring/summer of 1996, the market had recovered fully from the recession of the early 1990s with the US having become particularly receptive to vintage Port. Opening prices rose considerably and in some cases have continued to soar, perversely overtaking mature vintages like 1970. The wines were appealing from the start, with ripe fleshy fruit concealing the underlying tannic grip that will enable these wines to stand the test of time.

Best wines

• Burmester
• Croft
• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Gould Campbell
• Graham’s
• Quarles Harris
• Quinta do Vesuvio
• Quinta da Eira Velha (Martinez)
• Taylor’s
• Warre’s

Revisiting vintage Port 1994

1992

Drink

A split declaration – a year favoured by Taylor’s and Fonseca over and above 1991. Rich, concentrated wines for drinking now and over the next 20 years

4/5

Vintage summary

The winter was unseasonably dry throughout Portugal and the drought continued until June, when a few days of rain proved to be very beneficial. Fortunately, the flowering was early and therefore not affected. The remainder of the summer was generally dry but not unduly hot, and a few short sharp showers in August helped to swell the grapes. Most growers began picking on 21 September but those who held off another week probably made better wines.

A split declaration (with 1991); Taylor’s/Fonseca famously declared 1992 whereas the Symington-owned houses all opted for 1991. Niepoort declared both. It now seems that 1992 produced the better wines for drinking over the medium- to long-term: big, rich and complete.

Best wines

• Delaforce
• Fonseca
• Malvedos (Graham’s)
• Niepoort
• Quinta do Infantado
• Quinta do Passadouro (Niepoort)
• Quinta do Vesuvio
• Quinta da Agua Alta (Churchill)
• Taylor’s

1991

Drink soon

Soft and relatively early maturing, declared by Dow’s, Graham’s and Warre’s among others.

3.5/5

Vintage summary

Growing conditions were good: a wet winter was followed by a dry, settled spring and early summer when flowering took place under ideal conditions. High summer was hot and very dry, relieved only by some timely rain on 11 and 12 September and again just before the harvest. When picking began, ambient temperatures were still high, presenting real problems for those producers without means of controlling fermentations.

The grapes tended to be small with little juice resulting in deep, dense powerful wines for the medium-to-long-term. It was declared by the Symington-owned houses Dow’s, Graham’s, Warre’s, Smith Woodhouse, Gould Campbell and Quarles Harris in preference to 1992. Taylor’s and Fonseca declared single-quinta wines. 1991 was a watershed vintage in that, for the first time, more vintage Port was shipped to the US than the UK.

Best wines

• Croft
• Ferreira
• Graham’s
• Niepoort
• Rozès
• Taylor’s

1987

Drink soon

A handful of shippers declared good wines for the medium term.

3/5

Vintage summary

After a successful flowering, the prospects were for a large crop, but exceptionally hot, dry weather from mid-June intervened. By early September, the grapes were looking distinctly small and somewhat raisined. The weather broke during the vintage but those who picked early made intense, concentrated wines, marred in some cases only by a slightly roasted character.

A handful of shippers declared (Ferreira, Martinez, Niepoort) but the majority held off and bottled single-quinta wines. More may have taken the plunge but for the fact that the market for vintage Port was looking distinctly shaky by the time of the would-be declaration in the spring/summer of 1989.

Best Producers

• Quinta da Eira Velha (Martinez)
• Quinta da Terra Feita (Taylor’s)
• Quinta do Bomfim (Dow’s)
• Quinta do Panascal (Fonseca)

1985

Drink

Universally declared. A warm summer produced some outstandingly good wines for the long term, but some emerged with serious faults. Buyer beware! The best are lovely now and can be drunk over the next 15 years.

4/5

Vintage summary

A textbook growing season: a wet winter was followed by a cool spring and from June onwards the weather was magnificent. The grapes were gathered under perfect conditions with unbroken summer-like weather from early September until the end of the harvest. The only serious problem for the winemakers was the midday heat (up to 32C) and this may account for the variability in some of the 1985s.

A unanimous declaration, but some of the wines have not lived up to their early promise having subsequently turned volatile in bottle. However, the power and concentration that is the hallmark of the 1985 vintage continues to live on in many of the wines. These will remain impressive to drink over the medium-to-long-term.

Best wines

• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Graham’s
• Warre’s

1983

Drink

Widely declared, although a few shippers preferred 1982. Firm, tight-knit wines that can be drunk now, and the best will keep for another 10-20 years

4/5

Vintage summary

The year began badly with a long, cold winter extending into spring. Snow fell on the Serra do Marão to the west of the Douro as late as 20 May! The vines were three weeks behind. From June to mid-August the weather was hot but unsettled and, despite a successful flowering, the vines remained backward. Picking consequently began late (end of September) but fortunately the weather remained fine into October and some outstanding wines were made despite the uneven spring and summer.

The majority of shippers chose (rightly in retrospect) to declare 1983 instead of 1982, making this something of a ‘split vintage’. Initially the 1983s were quite difficult to taste, the fruit being wrapped up in powerful, muscular tannins. With age however, the wines gained flesh and appeal but the cast iron backbone remains. The best will last forever.

Best wines

• Dow’s
• Gould Campbell
• Graham’s
• Niepoort
• Quarles Harris
• Smith Woodhouse
• Taylor’s
• Warre’s

1982

Drink soon

Forward and relatively fast-maturing, with soft, sweet character

3/5

Vintage summary

After a dry winter and warm spring, June and July were abnormally cool with high cloud and hazy conditions with some showers. Consequently, the vines were well-able to cope with the extreme heat in August and early September, with beneficial heavy rain over the last weekend in August. The grapes were uniformly healthy with high sugar readings throughout the Douro.

1982/1983 is a classic example of a so-called ‘split vintage’ (see also 1991/1992), where there was a lack of consensus among the Port shippers as to which of the two is the better year. In the end, 1983 won hands down. Although the ripe, healthy fruit is reflected in the soft, sweet raisiny character of the 1982s, they are relatively forward and early maturing. Those who decided not to opt for a fully fledged declaration bottled some successful single-quinta wines.

Best wines

• Churchill
• Niepoort
• Quinta do Noval
• Sandeman

1980

Drink

An underrated vintage that produced approachable, easygoing wines for the medium term. Dow’s, Graham’s and Warre’s are very good.

3/5

Vintage summary

An unusually early spring was followed by an extremely dry growing season and sugar readings were on the low side when picking began a week or so later than normal, at the end of September. Ambient temperatures were high during the harvest and the lagares fermented furiously fast and therefore took little work before being run off.

Perhaps deterred by a steep hike in opening prices, the 1980s were largely overlooked by the trade. The wines however are very attractive; open, fresh and fruit-driven, which has stood them in good stead for drinking over the medium-to-long-term. As a result, 1980 is something of a Cinderella vintage, delicious for drinking now and over the next ten or more years.

Best wines

• Dow’s
• Graham’s
• Niepoort
• Offley
• Smith Woodhouse
• Taylor’s
• Warre’s

1977

Drink

Highly rated at the outset – and widely declared – these wines have developed faster than expected.Drink now – 2030.

4/5

Vintage summary

A wet winter was followed by a somewhat disappointing summer with only one period of real heat. August was cool and often overcast. Sugar levels were still alarmingly low at the beginning of September but this was compensated for by very hot weather later in the month, which continued into early October. Sugar levels were still on the low side when picking began but it was clear from the colour and flavour of the musts that some fine wines were likely to emerge.

The 1977 Port vintage was hailed as a classic when it was declared in 1979 and was well received by the trade. Every shipper except Cockburn, Martinez and Noval chose to declare. Although 1977 produced some outstanding wines, overall the vintage has not quite lived up to early expectations and, 20 years on, the wines were fully mature with one or two beginning to show their age. This is a very good vintage but not up to the standards of 1963 or 1945.

Best wines

• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Graham’s
• Smith Woodhouse
• Taylor’s
• Warre’s

1970

Drink

Classic, tight-knit wines, some outstanding, that will will last a lifetime. Drink now to 2030+.

5/5

Vintage summary

Cool weather during the flowering reduced yields and, following a dry summer, prospects at the start of picking looked good. The harvest began around 20 September in extreme heat. Due to the dry summer, sugar readings were on the low side but the heat served to raisin a portion of the crop, thereby concentrating the musts. Cooler night-time temperatures as the vintage progressed helped to slow down fermentations and produced wines with exceptional colour and body.

Early tastings tended to play down the overall quality of the 1970s and it is only several decades on that these tight-knit, beautifully balanced wines have come to be judged in their true light. Although not as fine overall as the undeniably impressive 1963s, there are wines from 1970 that deserve to be ranked among the great vintage Ports of the 20th century. This being the last vintage to be bottled both in Portugal and in the UK, there is inevitably a certain amount of variation from bottle to bottle. All subsequent vintages were bottled in Vila Nova de Gaia.

Best wines

• Cálem
• Delaforce
• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Graham’s
• Kopke
• Niepoort
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Taylor’s

1967

Drink soon

Two leading shippers declared 1967, but there was little that was memorable

2/5

Vintage summary

After a cool summer (without any real heat in July or August), the grapes were still green and backward when picking began around 20 September. Both yields and sugar levels were low. Many picked too early (fearing a repeat of the rains which had marred the latter part of the previous three vintages), however warm weather continued into October and, unusually, the best grapes with higher sugar readings were picked last.

Two leading shippers (Cockburn and Martinez) declared 1967 in preference to 1966, whereas a handful – including Noval and Sandeman – declared both. At best 1967 produced gentle, middle-distance wines, but even the finest are starting to fade.

Best wines

• Cockburn
• Quinta do Noval Nacional

1966

Drink

Some outstanding wines, combining power and elegance, the best on par with 1963. No hurry to drink, some wines will last a lifetime.

5/5

Vintage summary

An exceptionally wet winter prepared the vines for a hot, dry summer. In August, temperatures of 45C were recorded twice at Pinhao in the heart of the Cima Corgo but with so much ground water, the grapes did not dry up or raisin-ise. Rain finally arrived during the harvest, but with yields well-down on average the crop came to no harm. The fermentations were helped by cool weather and musts registered higher-than-average readings with excellent colour. It was clear at the end of the harvest that a fine vintage was in prospect.

History has been rather unfair to the 1966s which, until relatively recently, were completely overshadowed by the 1963s. Although quality is not as uniformly high as 1963, 1966 hits many of the same high spots with wines combining concentration, structure and intensity. Although bottlings vary (a consequence of bottling in both Vila Nova de Gaia and in the UK) Dow and Fonseca are stupendous.

Best wines

• Cálem
• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Graham’s
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Taylor’s

1963

Drink

A post-war classic. Superb wines, wonderful to drink now and many with a long life ahead. The best will last a lifetime.

5/5

Vintage summary

A textbook growing season: warm weather throughout the summer with no rain from June onwards. A little rain fell in mid-September, helping to swell the grapes just before the harvest. Yields were high. Fine weather continued through the vintage, which took place in perfect conditions with cool night-time temperatures serving to control fermentations.

The combination of a near-perfect growing season and temperate weather during the harvest (at a time when temperature control was unheard of) made for a benchmark vintage. With very few exceptions, nearly all the shippers produced supremely balanced, well-structured wines for a full-on declaration. No vintage since can claim quite so many classic wines (with the only caveat being the variation between different bottlings). Anyone born in 1963 has a wine for life.

Best wines

• Cockburn
• Croft
• Delaforce
• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Graham’s
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Taylor’s
• Warre’s

1960

Drink soon

Erratic conditions reduced yields and dramatically compromised quality

2/5

Vintage summary

A hot, dry summer was relieved at the last minute by refreshing rain just before picking began on 19 September. The rain brought the intense heat to an end so that the lagares took more work and produced musts with good structure and depth of colour.

This beguiling vintage seemed to peak in the early 1980s but the better wines now appear to be sitting on a long plateau and are still drinking well. The wines are mostly middle-weight and lacking a little in backbone but are soft, sweet and attractive for drinking now.

Best wines

• Cockburn
• Dow’s
• Graham’s
• Quinta do Noval Nacional

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• Vintage Port 2000 and 2003: panel tasting results
• Port 2017: Vintage guide and what to buy

Port producers only declare a vintage in the best years, when wines hailing from the best plots are deemed of good enough quality and market conditions are considered favourable. As such, Vintage Port accounts for between 1 and 2% of overall Port production and vintage declarations are always eagerly anticipated.

Challenging growing season

The 2022 vintage did not look particularly promising amid a very dry and hot growing season, with rainfall well below average. The region entered severe drought at the end of June. According to Christian Seely, MD at Quinta do Noval, temperatures hit 45.5°C in mid-July and stayed above 40°C for prolonged periods in August.

However, there was moderate rainfall in early September, creating better picking conditions at harvest and offsetting some of the effects of the drought and high temperatures. Overall, the year’s challenging conditions produced small berries, with a good juice to skin ratio contributing directly to the quality of the wines.

Seely described it as ‘a year of extremes’, but suggested that 2022 could follow in the footsteps of some highly-rated vintages.

‘Such extremes are not entirely unprecedented: similar conditions were experienced in the great vintages of 2017 and 1945,’ he said. ‘As in these years, 2022 demonstrated the remarkable resilience of our terroir and of our Douro grape varieties.’

Quinta do Noval has declared three Vintage Ports: Quinta do Noval 2022, Quinta do Noval Nacional 2022 and Quinta do Passadouro 2022.

Seely added: ‘We knew from the start that the Quinta do Noval Nacional Vintage Port 2022 was exceptional, and the wine has continued to develop wonderfully since the harvest, displaying the multi-layered complexity and depth that are typical of a great Nacional. Powerful and pure, it combines opulent richness, intensity and concentration with astonishing freshness.’

Meanwhile, the Sogevinus Group declared four 2022 Vintage Ports from across its multiple estates: Kopke Quinta de São Luiz 2022, Burmester Quinta do Arnozelo 2022, Cálem 2022 and Barros 2022.

Carlos Alves, master blender and winemaker, said: ‘At harvest, the red wines had a very clean aroma and very bright and rich colours. These characteristics improved with two years of ageing, and so we decided to declare a vintage for all four Quintas, which each exhibit individual differences and represent a sense of place.’

Vintage Ports are declared two years after the harvest. The announcements traditionally take place on St. George’s Day (April 23), or at some point during the following few weeks.

The Fladgate Partnership marked St George’s Day by announcing the release of two Vintage Ports from 2022 – limited bottlings of Fonseca Guimaraens and Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas.

Head winemaker David Guimaraens said: ‘The crop at Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas estate was one of the healthiest we have seen for years, and the Ports made on the Fonseca estates were outstanding, allowing us to produce a very fine Guimaraens vintage blend, full bodied and packed with dense berry fruit flavour. A true time capsule of the year.’

Earlier in April, Sogrape announced the declaration of Vintage 2022 for its three Port houses: Porto Ferreira, Sandeman and Offley. Luís de Sottomayor, who oversees Douro and Port wine production at Sogrape, highlighted the good acidity and sense of place that underpins the character of the three Vintage Ports – Sandeman Quinta do Seixo Vintage 2022, Porto Ferreira Quinta do Porto Vintage 2022, and Offley Vintage 2022 – to be released in September.

Previous iterations of Sandeman Quinta do Seixo (Vintage 2017) and Porto Ferreira (Vintage 2018) are among the best scoring wines in Sogrape’s history, creating great anticipation for the potential of the newly declared Vintage.

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It was a moment which barely seemed possible. Port Ellen, the now mythical Islay single malt whisky distillery has risen from the rubble and is once again making its distinctly smoky spirit – more than 40 years after it closed down.

The distillery was founded in 1825, but mothballed in 1930. Reopened for a brief period between 1967 and 1983, it became a powerhouse on the island of Islay, with much of its stock used predominantly for blended whiskies.

Due to a difficult economic climate, the distillery was then shuttered – seemingly for good – in April 1983. Its last casks were laid to rest in nearby warehousing, while the stills and other distilling equipment were dismantled and removed.

Remarkably the handful of remaining, almost forgotten stock of Port Ellen blossomed into truly extraordinary single malt. It became highly coveted by whisky connoisseurs and collectors alike during the early 2000s, prized for its distinctive chamois leather, gentle smoke and citrus fruit aroma and flavour – as well as its increasing rarity.

Prices for Port Ellen on the secondary market rose considerably and the brand’s owner, Diageo, released a yearly batch bottling, from the last casks dating back to either 1978 or 1979. These were quickly snapped up by those in the know.

Back to life

As a result of its reversal in fortunes, in 2017 Diageo announced that Port Ellen would become part of a £185 million investment scheme to breathe life into a handful of closed distilleries. This scheme also included Highland distillery Brora, which was fully renovated and reopened in 2021.

Work was finally completed on the site of Port Ellen in early 2024. The brand new, state-of-the-art distillery complex was formally opened in an emotional ceremony on 19 March.

Descendants of the distillery’s founding father, John Ramsay, were in attendance, along with former distillery worker Iain McArthur. This was a remarkable moment, as McArthur had filled the very last Port Ellen cask back in 1983.

To exactly recreate the original distillery – and the spirit which ran from its stills – was an enormous task. But it was a challenge relished by the entire team involved. ‘We’re very lucky that we have the Diageo archive team, who had documents and blueprints for the original stills,’ explained Master Distiller Alexander McDonald (above). ‘Everything from the shape and fill size has been accurately recreated to the original specifications,’ he added.

Innovations and new experiences

The re-envisioned distillery building is housed completely in glass (see below) and now incorporates a number of innovative additions, alongside the more traditional features. A unique 10-part spirit safe allows the distilling process to be broken down to a granular level for the very first time, so McDonald and his team can accurately recreate the classic Port Ellen spirit style of the past.

‘The thing which makes Port Ellen for me is the unique fruitiness of the spirit,’ he explained. ‘Using these “Phoenix” stills [named in homage to their resurrection] we can accurately recreate the character of the spirit from the golden period between 1967 and 1983.’

In addition to the main Phoenix stills, the distillery is also equipped with a pair of Experimental stills that are exact one-third scale replicas of the originals. They can be used to produce spirit in a number of other styles, giving a huge variety of scope for future innovation.

Alongside the distillery building is a visitor centre experience, its minimalist Scandinavian design inspired by the natural beauty of Islay. This will be open from June and has been designed to make the most of stunning views of Islay’s coastline and across the bay to the Carraig Fhada Lighthouse. The new visitor centre is furnished with artwork by renowned Scottish artist Lucy May Schofield, inspired by the elemental landscape.

A taste of Port Ellen

The new site also includes a bespoke Kiln Room tasting space, where visitors can really get under the skin of the legendary spirit. ‘The kiln room was the only building left from the original site [due to its previous demolition],’ explained Ewan Gunn, senior global brand ambassador for Diageo malts. ‘The tasting experience is designed to be a crucible of ideas, to explore and map out flavour from every stage.’

To coincide with the reopening, the distillery has also unveiled a new release: Port Ellen Gemini. This 44-year-old release features twin decanters of original whisky first distilled in 1978 and filled into two contrasting European oak casks – an Original Cask and Remnant Cask, the latter being additionally seasoned with oloroso Sherry – to demonstrate the original distillery’s distinctive character.

Tasted at the distillery, Port Ellen Gemini Original Cask (Alc 54.9%) boasts baked apple, tropical fruit and maritime coastal aromas, with light aromatic smoke, plus sherbet lemon and lime aromas. The palate is filled with more delicate smoke, manuka honey and cracked black pepper.

Only 274 individual sets of Port Ellen Gemini are available in selected markets, priced at £45,000.

For more information on Port Ellen Gemini or visiting the distillery later this year, visit portellen.com 

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Seppeltsfield, established in the Barossa in 1851 and with an unbroken lineage of cellared single vintage tawny from 1878, has made no secret of its aim to position its 100-year-old wines as being desirable for the new-generation luxury market. The Riedel partnership marks the latest in a series of steps to draw fresh attention to its rare annual wine offering.

The Seppeltsfield winemakers and marketing team conducted a tasting masterclass with Riedel Australia staff during 2023 to test 12 different glasses from the existing Riedel range with the aim of finding the ideal drinking vessel for such old, concentrated wine – and sent a bottle of the 1924 Para Vintage Tawny to company CEO Maximilian Riedel in Europe for consideration. They reached a unanimous decision that the Riedel Vinum Cognac Hennessy Glassware presented the wine in the best possible manner.

‘For such a highly concentrated fortified wine, we found this glassware best delivered the complex mix of aromas and flavours to the taster. A new design wasn’t required because the Vinum Cognac Hennessy glass worked perfectly. We were surprised how much it lifted the best attributes of this wine,’ said Lauren Mudge, Seppeltsfield’s head of sales and marketing.

The pairing of tested stemware with Seppeltsfield Para Vintage Tawny builds on steps taken in 2023 to modernise and refine packaging of the 100-year-old wine in elegantly shaped 100ml glass vessels. The success of this transformation prompted Seppeltsfield to go further by positioning itself alongside other luxury brands such as Riedel.

Such a partnership is designed to help draw attention to the 1924 wine that continues the Seppeltsfield Centennial Collection. The world’s only unbroken lineage of single vintage Tawny dates back to 1878, with each of the vintage wines having seen a minimum of 100 years in oak barrels within the Centenary Cellar at Seppeltsfield before being released to the market.

The 1924 vintage is surprisingly deceptive, being fresher than expected for a 100-year-old wine. The aroma is especially powerful, yet its richness is measured and tempered by clean, sweet notes, with concentrated coffee essence and an undertone of dark molasses framed by a whiff of green walnut liqueur, cedar cigar box shavings and vanilla pod.

Coloured the deepest walnut brown, with glowing amber ember at the rim, the wine shows a sweet meld of Shiraz, Grenache and Mourvèdre components (although percentages of each grape variety used in the blend were not recorded at vintage). On the palate, it’s an intriguing long flavour ride, with a more explosive initial impact than recent Para Centenary releases. After a smooth entry, it bites sharply as slightly bitter herbal notes and a spicy nutmeg tingle interrupt a rich, rolling chocolate and coffee tide that fills the mid palate, with acid keeping the structure taut and the flavours clean and clearly defined. The concluding note of concentrated coffee and cocoa sticks to the walls of your cheeks long, long after the last drop has drained down your throat.

Seppeltsfield chief winemaker Fiona Donald expressed surprise at the wine’s vitality. ‘The 1924 vintage shows incredible intensity, volume and mouthfeel, remarkable freshness and length driven with a type of blood orange acidity,’ she said.

Mudge said that the Seppeltsfield cellar door tasting room is now transitioning to use only Riedel stemware for presenting tasting samples of 100-year-old Para Vintage Tawny. Customers purchasing the 2024 Para Vintage Tawny can also have a pair of Riedel Vinum Cognac Hennessy glasses included with the boxed wine bottle for an additional A$110.

* Seppeltsfield 1924 100-Year-Old Para Vintage Tawny is available in the UK via Bancroft Wines (RRP £1,250, including sales tax), and in the US via LEGEND imports (US RRP $1,750). It is also available from Seppeltsfield Cellar Door or via Seppeltsfield.com.au with shipping possible worldwide.

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In 30 years of contributing to Decanter, this is without doubt the most self-indulgent article I have ever had the good fortune to write.

I want my case of 12 Ports to last longer than the 12 days of Christmas and into the better part of the next year, or longer if I’m thinking about cellaring something special for the future. As well as fireside drinking this winter, I’m already thinking ahead to the lazy days of summer, when I want to bide my time with a glass of cool tawny in the garden. Then there’s that most wonderful of aperitifs: white Port and tonic or Portonic.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Richard Mayson’s perfect Port picks

Port, so often associated with the winter months, is very much a drink for all seasons.

The following is a personal selection of some of the best and most innovative Ports I’ve had the pleasure to taste over the past year or so. My choice covers the entire style spectrum (and most of the price spectrum), though I do admit to a penchant for suave, aged colheitas and tawnies. One of the great advantages of these wood-aged styles is you can keep a bottle open to the air and help yourself to a glass over weeks, even months.

All the wines in my perfect case are available to buy now, and there’s a great wine here for nearly every occasion – that’s the beauty of Port.

White Port

I used to be down on white Port, but it all changed when more cask-aged wines came on the market about 20 years ago. Churchill was one of the first to bottle this style of wine and since a change in the legislation there are also white Ports bottled with an indication of age, and as colheitas [single-harvest wines aged long in casks until ready for consumption]. It might seem a bit taboo, but in summer I rather like mixing an older white Port with tonic: this style of Portonic has the bittersweet zest of a Negroni cocktail but is considerably more refreshing – and you can drink more of it.

• Ferreira, Dona Antónia Reserva Branco

Ruby

A good ruby, bottled young with minimal wood-ageing captures the vibrant fruit of the Douro like no other wine. Only a young Douro red comes close, but there you have to stomach the tannins without any of the natural sweetness. Not all ruby comes up to the mark; some bargainbasement wines are raw and uninteresting. By contrast, Cockburn’s Fine Ruby (widely available at £12-£16) is a bestseller and was awarded a Gold medal in this year’s DWWA. The wine I’ve chosen is just a cut above, delicious on its own as a winter warmer, or even in a long serve, reviving the reimagined pub classic Port & Lemon.

• Cockburn’s, Tails of the Unexpected Ruby Soho

LBV

Late Bottled Vintage means just what it says: a wine from a single year or vintage that’s bottled after spending four to six years in large wooden vats or casks. It’s a style that has captured the hearts of British drinkers and has been responsible for the growth in consumption over my professional lifetime. LBV has been very price-sensitive and there are still some real bargains to be had. Supermarket Marks & Spencer won a Gold for its own-label LBV 2017 (£16 Ocado) at this year’s DWWA. I have chosen a couple of wines with real substance: one (Graham’s) filtered before bottling so that you don’t have to decant, the other unfiltered that will continue to develop in bottle should you wish.

• Graham’s, Late Bottled Vintage 2018
• Sandeman, Late Bottled Vintage 2018

Tawny

‘Tawny’ covers a continuum of colours, styles and prices of Port from relatively young reserva, through 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years old. Remember these are ‘indications of age’ rather than an exact statement as these are blends – and, for me, aged tawny is more about house style. I admit to a preference for a paler, more refined style of tawny than a fuller-flavoured wine. I love aged tawnies from Burmester, Ferreira, Niepoort, Poças and Sandeman, as well as the wines listed here. My preference is for 20- and 30-year old as the perfect place on that continuum, where youth and maturity seem to meet. The combination of one of these wines with a Portuguese tarte de amendoa (almond tart) a crème brûlée or even a pastel de nata (the popular custard tart) is simply heavenly.

• Ramos Pinto, Quinta de Ervamoira 10 Year Old Tawny
• Taylor’s, 30 Year Old Tawny

Colheita

It may be a coincidence but, like aged tawny, I feel that colheita (effectively vintage-dated tawny) needs 20 years or so for the tannins to soften and the melding process to be complete. However, some older colheitas suffer from elevated volatile acidity, sometimes described in my tasting notes as vinagrinho (‘little vinegar’) or ‘balsamic’. The two wines below were bottled at their peak.

• Quinta do Noval, Colheita 2005
• Barros, Colheita 1974

Single quinta vintage

The 2010s have been a golden decade for vintage Port, with classic declarations of full vintages in 2011 and from 2015 to 2020. The weakest years were 2012 and 2013, but this is only relative and a cause for celebration when single-estate Ports (quinta means simply ‘estate’) then come onto the market and provide the opportunity to drink a vintage Port, early on and at a reasonable price.

• Taylor’s, Quinta de Vargellas 2013
• Quinta do Noval, Vintage Port 2012
• Vintage

Vintage Port needs little introduction, but suffice to say it represents the cream of the crop from the best of years. I am spoilt for choice here, but older vintages (pre-1994) are now getting harder to find other than through the auction houses. Provided they have been cared for, I could happily fill my whole case with these. The 1994 vintage heralded a return to form after something of a dip in the 1970s and 1980s (though that’s not so say that these decades didn’t produce some magnificent individual wines). Here are two wines from the ‘modern’ era (of differing age and maturity) that really impressed me in the past year.

• Warre’s, Vinhas Velhas Vintage Port 2020
• Dow’s, Vintage Port 1994

Richard Mayson’s perfect Port picks:

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Port will be celebrated across the world on 10th September. National Port Day offers the perfect opportunity to explore the many styles of this famous fortified wine.

In his guide to Port styles Richard Mayson explains that there is a Port for all occasions, if you know what you’re looking for. ‘Often thought of as an after-dinner, fireside drink, Port can be enjoyed in multiple ways depending on the character of the wine,’ he says.

Scroll down to discover 12 top-scoring Ports reviewed by Decanter’s team of experts

Take a look at his ‘Know your Port styles – The Decanter guide’ for a formidable look at the Port pyramid, which explains each different style from white Port (often served with tonic water to make an alternative version of a gin & tonic) through to vintage Port and everything in between. It will point you to the right Port for any occasion, winter or summer.

All Port comes from Portugal’s Douro Valley, which is one of the oldest regulated wine regions in the world, with demarcation dating back to 1756. Given the myriad grape varieties native to Portugal more than 100 different varieties are permitted in port production, but in reality just a handful are used.

For red Ports Touriga Nacional, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo), Tinto Cão and Touriga Francesa are the key varieties, while for white Ports, Viosinho, Malvasia Fina, Códega and Rabigato are the most common.

Whatever style you prefer, make sure you enjoy a glass on National Port Day.

To get you in the mood, here’s a selection of recently reviewed Ports.

12 top Ports to try on National Port Day

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The Fladgate Partnership has launched its first table wine division after purchasing around 200 ha of vineyards in Vinho Verde, Dão and Bairrada.

The company, which produces Taylor’s, Croft, Fonseca and other Port brands, purchased the quintas from Ideal Drinks for an undisclosed sum.

They include the 53 ha Quinta da Pedra, one of the leading estates in Vinho Verde, located in the heart of the Monção and Melgaço sub-regions.

It has also taken on another Vinho Verde estate – the 24 ha Paço de Palmeira, which is famed for producing high-quality Loureiro in the Minho sub-region.

In the Dão region, The Fladgate Partnership has snapped up the 50 ha Quinta de Bella, whose wines include Dom Bella and Bella.

The company has also purchased two estates in the nearby Bairrada DOC: the 56 ha Collinas São Lourenço and the 14 ha Quinta da Curia.

Those estates grow native varietals such as Touriga Nacional, along with international varieties including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir.

It means that The Fladgate Partnership now controls 197 ha of vineyards spread across three leading still wine regions in Portugal.

‘This strategic move is a testament to our persistent commitment to Portugal’s winemaking heritage and the exceptional quality of wines produced in Vinho Verde, Bairrada and Dão,’ said CEO Adrian Bridge.

‘With the integration of the talented teams, we are confident in our ability to further elevate the reputation of these outstanding Portuguese wine regions.’

The company exports 93% of its Ports to 105 different countries, and it has noticed a growing demand for Portuguese table wines in international markets.

That inspired it to purchase the quintet of quintas from Ideal Drinks, a company established by Portuguese businessman Carlos Dias in 2010. The Fladgate Partnership said that all staff will be retained at each estate, with no layoffs.

Related articles

• Visiting World of Wine in Porto
• France forecasts stable 2023 wine harvest
• Niepoort: Producer profile and 10 top wines to try

Last summer, Portuguese entrepreneur Mário Ferreira travelled to an altitude of 107 kilometres (66 miles) above mean sea level.

He took a bottle of Taylor’s 2003 Vintage Port with him as a passenger on the mission run by Blue Origin, the aerospace company set up by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

In doing so, the tourism tycoon became the first Portuguese man in space, and he toasted his 10-minute suborbital journey with a glass of his favourite fortified wine.

Taylor’s has now capitalised on the momentous occasion by launching a limited-edition gift box featuring its 2003 Vintage Port.

The gift box has a galactic theme, so it should add extra sparkle to wine cellars, and it could also make an excellent birthday gift for anyone turning 21 next year.

Taylor’s CEO Adrian Bridge said the 2003 vintage was ‘an excellent choice and the perfect vintage with which to explore new frontiers’.

The wine was sourced from two of Taylor’s top vineyards in the Douro – Quinta de Vargellas and Quinta de Terra Feita.

As always, the grapes from these sites come together whenever the overall quality is high enough for Taylor’s to declare a vintage.

The 2003 vintage was blessed with warm weather at the end of May, supporting a successful flowering, followed by intense summer heat in early August.

Cooler temperatures arrived in late August, preceding a warm, dry picking season in September, so conditions were almost perfect, and the result is a balanced, complex wine, which has consistently secured high scores from leading wine critics.

‘The Taylor’s 2003 Vintage is one of the most highly acclaimed Port wines of recent decades – a monumental vintage which, to quote celebrated wine authority Robert Parker, will stand proudly shoulder to shoulder with the finest ever crafted by Taylor’s,’ said Bridge.

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Do you want to find out which was the best recent vintage from the Douro Valley? Or maybe you’re keen to know which vintages are drinking well now? Our Port vintage guide has you covered.

2019 2018 2017 20162015 2014 2013 20122011 2010 2009 20082007 2006 2005 20042003 2002 2001 2000

Looking for older vintages? Read Decanter’s Port Vintage Guide: 1960-1999

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2021

Keep

A relatively cool growing season with very few classic declarations but some good single-quinta wines in prospect. Drink from early 2030s.

3.5/5

Vintage summary

One of the coolest growing seasons in recent years, without the extreme heat waves that have become common in the Douro. The year began with a wet winter followed by a mild spring with an early budburst and flowering. The weather in June was hot and unstable with localised hail damage but July and August were mild leading to even ripening and an early harvest. However harvest was interrupted on three occasions by heavy rain which caused the conscientious growers to stop picking (it was the wettest September since 2015). Yields were good and as a result the harvest was drawn out over six weeks, concluding in early/mid-October.

The wines are characterised by their freshness and good depth of colour. Not generally declared, but a few single-quinta and so-called ‘micro-terroir’ wines will be outstanding. Many of the leading single-quinta wines have been kept back for later release.

Best wines

• Graham’s The Stone Terraces
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Noval Nacional

2020

Keep

A smattering of classic declarations and some promising single-quinta wines after a hot summer. Drink from 2038-2060, SQVPs from 2030.

4/5

Vintage summary

The year of the Covid pandemic: excellent wines produced in minute quantities. After three dry winters in a row, rain fell in 2019 and 2020. A warm spring with more rainfall ensured sufficient ground water for the rest of the growing season. Yields were already looking small when temperatures spiked in late June and July (the hottest July since 1931 when records began). August was milder and ripening was even and rapid. This led to an early harvest when all the grape varieties seemed to ripen at the same time. There was little or no foot treading due to social distancing.

2020 produced a smattering of classic declarations along with some promising single-quinta vintage Ports (SQVPs) mostly held back for later release. The best wines are aromatic, concentrated and surprisingly fresh, despite the heat. It will be interesting to see how they evolve.

Best wines

• Churchill
• Graham
• Kopke
• Quinta de Ervamoira
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Warre Vinhas Velhas

2019

Keep

Fresher wines than 2018 and 2017. Some very good single-quinta wines. Drink from 2035-2060. SQVPs from 2030.

4/5

Vintage summary

An erratic growing season which came good in the end. After a dry winter and almost no rain over the summer months, the year was saved by the complete absence of extreme heat. Light rain at the end of August, again on the equinox and finally in mid-October, helped to swell the grapes and contributed to even ripening. The late-ripening Touriga Franca grape (often not picked until well into October) performed particularly well. Picking took place over six weeks, making this one of the longest harvests in recent years – in complete contrast to 2020.

The resulting wines are fresh and exuberant in contrast to the concentration from the two previous years. A few classic declarations, as well as some very good single-quinta wines.

Best wines

• Niepoort
• Quinta do Crasto
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Quinta do Porto
• Quinta do Vesúvio
• Quinta dos Malvedos
• Quinta Senhora da Ribeira

For a more detailed report see Port 2019: Vintage guide and what to buy 

2018

Keep

Early days as yet, but a good growing season should produce some promising single-quinta wines. Drink from 2032-2060. SQVPs from 2028.

4/5

Vintage summary

The fourth good year in a row, though more patchy than 2017. After 22 months of drought, a wet spring helped to restore some soil moisture. This was followed by summer heat waves with temperatures rising to 45℃ in parts of the Douro Superior. Conditions seemed to suit wines from the Douro Superior: the late-ripening Touriga Franca grape lent wines freshness and definition.

There were classic declarations from a number of leading shippers including Taylor’s, which made an unprecedented third declaration in succession. Luis Sottomayor, winemaker for Sogrape (Ferreira, Sandeman and Offley) was effusive. ‘2018 is one of the best, if not the best vintage I have witnessed,’ he said. The best wines seem to offer ripeness, concentration and freshness in almost equal measure. There are some excellent single-quinta wines, some still to be released.

Best wines

• Fonseca Guimaraens
• Ferreira
• Quinta dos Malvedos
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Vesúvio
• Sandeman
• Taylor

For a more detailed report see Port 2018: Vintage guide and what to buy 

2017

Keep

A magnificent vintage, generally declared hard on the heels of 2016. Rich, powerful wines balanced by unusual freshness and verve. Drink from 2035-2070.

5/5

Vintage summary

Following on from 2007, 1997, 1977, 1947 and 1927, it seems there is a lucky ring to the number seven… 2017 was the driest year since 1945, another outstanding year to which the shippers made a direct comparison. But it was not especially hot. The heat came early in the growing season and after a major storm in early July the weather calmed down, which produced even ripening across the region. It was an abnormally early harvest and with low yields, it was all over by the end of September – the time when picking was just about starting back in the 1970s.

Generally declared, the best wines are characterised by ripeness and concentration backed by wonderful vibrancy and freshness. 2017 has all the makings of an outstanding vintage.

Best wines

• Cockburn
• Dow
• Fonseca
• Graham
• Graham’s The Stone Terraces
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Quinta de la Rosa
• Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha
• Serikos
• Taylor
• Warre

For a more detailed report see Port 2017: Vintage guide and what to buy

2016

Keep

Generally declared. Structured, well-balanced wines. Drink from 2025-2050 and over the long term.

4/5

Vintage summary

With five years having lapsed since the last widely declared Port vintage (2011), the generally declared 2016s were well-received. The year began with a warm, wet winter. It was followed by a cold, wet spring, which reduced yields and made for concentration in the wines. The summer months were hot and dry with a heatwave in August lasting into early September. Rain in late August and again in mid-September helped to put things back on track.

This was an early harvest but some picked too early. A few wines taste both green and raisiny at the same time. 2016 was an easy vintage to taste at the time of declaration, with wonderful up-front fruit evident both on the nose and on the palate. Many wines will be good to drink relatively early but the best (those with underlying structure and solidity) will keep.

Best wines

• Capela da Quinta do Vesúvio
• Cockburn
• Dow
• Fonseca
• Graham Graham’s The Stone Terraces
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Quinta do Vesúvio
• Taylor
• Warre

For a more detailed report see Port 2016: Vintage guide and what to buy

Know your Port styles

Seasonal Ports: 15 to try this winter

Video: How to decant vintage Port

2015

Keep

A limited declaration resulting in mostly single-quinta wines. Drink from 2030-2045 plus. SQVPs from 2025.

4/5

Vintage summary

A hot year declared as a vintage by a handful of shippers, with the majority opting for single-quinta or second label wines. At Symington’s Quinta do Vesúvio in the Douro Superior it was ‘simultaneously the hottest and driest growing season for 36 years’ according to the shipper. But 2015 proved to be wonderful for the Touriga Franca grape, a variety that enjoys heat and is generally picked late. Yields were low and those who waited to harvest produced more structured wines showing ripeness and concentration.

For Dirk Niepoort 2015 was ‘as perfect as it gets’ – both Niepoort and Ramos Pinto declared in preference to 2016. Others clearly felt something was lacking. So apart from a handful of classic declarations, this is a single-quinta year with some outstanding wines, the best of which will stand the test of time.

Best wines

• Cockburn
• Fonseca Guimareans
• Graham’s The Stone Terraces
• Niepoort
• Niepoort Bioma
• Quinta de Vargellas
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Vesúvio
• Quinta Senhora da Ribeira
• Ramos Pinto

For a more detailed report see Port 2015: Vintage guide and what to buy

2014

Keep

A challenging growing season. The wines have generally turned out much better than expected at the outset. Good in parts. Drink 2025-2040.

2.5/5

Vintage summary

The weakest year in a very strong decade for vintage Port. The weather remained unsettled through the early part of the summer, with some vineyards suffering localised hail damage. The rest of the summer was mild but shortly after picking began in mid-September, the weather broke and the harvest became a stop-start affair to avoid the rain.

Noval declared. The wines have generally turned out much better than expected at the outset.

Best wines

• Churchill
• Quinta do Noval

2013

Keep

A good year for single-quinta Ports. Drink 2023-2040.

3/5

Vintage summary

After a wet winter and a cool spring, the growing season was slow to start. Almost no rain fell in June, July and August but summer overall was only marginally warmer than average. The harvest began quite late and at the start some excellent wines were made, especially in the Douro Superior. However at the end of September the weather broke and it rained on and off, forcing many to pick earlier than planned.

‘We narrowly missed out on an exceptional vintage,’ said one winemaker. A good single-quinta vintage, especially in the Douro Superior which escaped the September rain. Noval and Poças declared.

Best wines

• Fonseca Guimaraens
• Quinta de Vargellas
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Seixo
• Quinta do Vesúvio
• Quinta dos Canais
• Quinta Senhora da Ribeira

2012

Keep

Low yields, wines with freshness and aromatic intensity. A good single-quinta vintage. Just about ready to drink now until 2045.

3/5

Vintage summary

A challenging year helped by naturally low yields. A wet spring was followed by intense heat in June and a more moderate summer. Hail caused localised damage in July. Rain interrupted the harvest, but with yields as much as 50% below average, 2012 produced some fine, concentrated wines.

Not generally declared but some very good single-quinta wines. Noval declared.

Best wines

• Fonseca Guimaraens
• Quinta da Roeda
• Quinta de Vargellas
• Quinta do Noval

2011

Keep

Universally declared, outstanding wines with poise and finesse that will keep for life. Drink 2030-2060 and over the long term.

5/5

Vintage summary

A challenging year for growers but a dream for winemakers. The winter of 2010/11 was wet, followed by an early warm, dry spring. Rain in April and May reduced yields. Then there was a spike of extreme heat at the end of June which literally scorched some exposed grapes. The summer continued dry but not unduly hot. Perfectly timed rain in late August and early September helped to swell the grapes and set the scene for a perfect harvest. No rain fell for another five weeks. The aromas coming from the lagares were magnificent from the start and good wines were made throughout the Douro from the beginning to end of harvest.

It came as no surprise when the 2011s were universally declared in early 2013. These are wines characterised by their structure, ripeness and expression of fruit, backed by broad, fine-grained tannins. This was the first year when major houses also declared tiny quantities of super-premium, site-specific wines.

Best wines

• Capaela do Vesúvio
• Cockburn
• Croft
• Dow
• Fonseca
• Graham
• Graham’s The Stone Terraces
• Niepoort
• Niepoort Bioma
• Poças
• Quinta da Romaneira
• Quinta de la Rosa
• Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Ramos Pinto
• Taylor
• Warre

For a more detailed report see Port 2011: Vintage guide and what to buy

2010

Drink

An uneven year with generally high yields, in which old vines produced some powerful single-quinta wines that are drinking well now and until 2035.

2.5/5

Vintage summary

An uneven year with heavy winter rain followed by a hot, dry summer. With heavy yields, grapes struggled to ripen and the harvest was a prolonged, stop-start affair due to rain.

No declaration but there are some lovely, soft, fragrant single-quinta Ports for relatively early drinking.

Best wines

• Quinta do Bomfim
• Quinta dos Canais
• Quinta dos Malvedos

2009

Keep

A hot year producing ripe, opulent wines. Drink 2030-2050 and over the long term. SQVPs are already good to drink.

4/5

Vintage summary

A year that divided opinions: the growing season began early and stayed ahead all the way through to an early harvest. The summer was hot and dry to the start of picking, which produced grapes with huge ripeness and concentration. The resulting wines are dense and opulent, reflecting the hot year.

There was a limited declaration: Taylor’s, Fonseca and Croft declared, as well as Warre’s. Other shippers opted for a single-quinta vintage.

Best wines

• Croft
• Fonseca
• Quinta de Ervamoira
• Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha
• Quinta dos Canais
• Quinta Senhora da Ribeira
• Taylor
• Warre

2008

Drink

Small harvest produced some outstanding single-quinta wines that are ready to drink now or keep. Noval declared.

3.5/5

Vintage summary

After a dry winter, double rations of rain drenched the Douro throughout April. The damp, stormy weather encouraged mildew, while low May temperatures delayed flowering. Fruit set was low and patchy. Cool, dry weather continued throughout June and July, and the usual intense heat of August never materialised. Instead of the hot, dry winds from the Spanish plain – the usual scenario – later summer was cooled further by damp Atlantic breezes.

The unseasonal temperatures postponed ripening. Although early September rain ushered in a very warm period to kick-start sugar accumulation, by mid-month the port grapes still weren’t ready. A dreary long-range outlook had some growers panic-picking– unfortunate, since others enjoyed perfect harvest weather (23 September to mid-October) and could pick well-ripened berries more judiciously. The yield was low and harvested fruit healthy, with soft, thinnish skins as a result of the cooler temperatures. The pressings soon revealed a fine acidity and lovely aromas.

On St George’s Day the following April, as is traditional, the vintage was declared by the major port house, although uniquely for single quintas. These vary from lighter, less imposing styles – but nonetheless ripe and luxuriant – like Dow’s Quinta Senhora de Ribeira to richer, rounded and silkier offerings such as Taylor’s highly-rated Terra Feita. Good grip, finish and ripe fruit will be hallmarks. General quality will of course be quite varied: those who brought in under-ripe fruit will have struggled to make wines of sufficient power and richness.

Best wines

• Guimaraens
• Quinta da Roeda
• Quinta de Terra Feita
• Quinta de Vargellas
• Quinta do Panascal
• Quinta do Vesuvio
• Senhora de Ribeira

2007

Keep

Widely declared. A relatively cool growing season produced wines with great purity and definition for drinking over the medium- to long-term. Drink from now.

4/5

Vintage summary

Apart from a dry January, winter was wet and the water table amply replenished for the season ahead. There were few early spring frosts and bud-burst came early, at the beginning of a sunny March. Unsettled weather in May disrupted fruit set in some locations and the overall yield is down. June and July remained unsettled, delaying the onset of ripening and exacerbating anxieties over mildew. Grapes remained green right into August, though mercifully the weather was now much drier and ripening was able to pick up pace. In September the temperatures soared and ripening was continuous and consistent right up until harvesting began – around 10 days later than usual, at the end of September. Picking continued into October under clear, blue skies.

These aren’t blockbuster Ports – the vintage wasn’t hot enough for that – but are instead very elegant wines with a subtle power of their own. Fragrant too – intense violet and raspberry aromas are typical. The cooler than usual summer promoted superb acidity and also good colour extraction thanks to the grapes’ soft skins. Tannins are distinctive: fine yet sweet and rich, and the vintage should be exceptionally long-lived (15+ years). Touriga Nacional grapes in particular benefited from the vintage’s more temperate ripening conditions, while the Barocca struggled a little to reach its rich full potential.

Best wines

• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Gould Campbell
• Graham
• Quinta de la Rosa
• Quinta do Vesuvio
• Quinto do Noval
• Quinta do Vale Meao
• Taylor

2006

Drink

Variable year. Some good single-quinta wines for the medium term, especially from the Douro Superior.

3/5

Vintage summary

Heavy winter rains replenished the drought-exhausted water table, while bud-burst began early April (later than usual). Good weather followed and flowering took place during the hottest May in 40 years. Strong winds in late May reduced fruit set in higher vineyards. Temperatures steadily increased until a severe hailstorm hit vineyards in the Pinhão and the Rio Torto valleys in the middle of June. Several vineyards lost up to 30% of the crop. A hot July followed, superseded by a cooler August and some very welcome rain indeed. More hot weather late August and early September caused some raisining and crop reduction in exposed vineyards. Picking began mid-September just ahead of an unsettled spell, though dry winds helped keep the grapes healthy.

Yields were down almost everywhere by at least 15%; in some places the Barroca yield was more than halved. The thicker-skinned Touriga Nacional and Franca varieties reacted best to the heat – the Touriga Nacional in particular had the potential to produce wonderfully complex and aromatic wines with an impressive depth of black fruit. Average quality is good to very good, but there are some very fine examples to be found.

Best wines

• Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira
• Quinta de Roriz
• Quinta do Portal
• Quinta do Vesuvio

2005

Drink

A year of severe drought. Powerful, concentrated single-quinta wines and a handful of outright declarations.

3/5

Vintage summary

With only 6mm of rain in June and none at all in July and August, the vines were showing signs of severe stress at the end of August. Vines located in high areas as well as old vines with deep roots produced the best grapes as they were able to best deal with the dry weather. Disease was not be a factor this year due to the exceptionally dry weather. Good flowering and fruit-set earlier played a key role in maintaining yields despite the drought. On 6 September the weather changed and a steady rain fell for several hours. The rain was followed by clear skies. Afterwards there was absolutely perfect weather with cool nights and some heavy dew. The harvesting weather could not have been better.

2004

Drink

A successful single-quinta year, well-balanced wines mostly ready to drink now until 2030.

3/5

Vintage summary

The growing season was extraordinary, with wet weather at the end of 2003 and an incredibly dry start to 2004. At Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim, just 147mm of rain fell during the first four months of the year – less than half the 10-year average. Flowering went well in all three Douro sub-regions but fruit-set was slightly less successful due to very rapid shoot growth encouraged by the warm, sunny conditions in May. July was hot with temperatures reaching 40℃. Vineyards remained in excellent condition but as August approached, growers became concerned as to how the vines would cope with the low water reserves in the soil.

Then rain fell on three consecutive days in early August, followed by yet more rainfall in the middle of the month, making this the wettest August in the north of Portugal for 104 years. The weather remained abnormally cool and overcast into September, slowing down the ripening process. When wet, unsettled weather returned in the first week of September, growers faced a major dilemma: start picking under-ripe grapes early before rot sets in, or hold on in the hope of better weather. Most held their nerve and, luckily, the sunshine returned. Sugar levels rose suddenly, taking many by surprise, and continued to rise as temperatures exceeded 30℃. Picking began around the middle of the month and continued through uninterrupted sunshine.

Not a drop of rain fell until 8 October by which time the harvest was all but complete. In 40 harvests, Peter Symington (winemaker for Dow, Graham and Warre) commented that he had never seen a vintage that could have swung so easily between near disaster or success.

2003

Keep/Drink

A long, hot summer produced ripe, opulent wines. Widely declared. Drink from now until 2050.

4.5/5

Vintage summary

The Douro Valley is not averse to a blast of heat and in 2003 this was balanced by plenty of rainfall at just the right time. The previous winter had been abnormally wet, with more than double the 10-year average rainfall. Spring was mild and budburst was early, but yet more rain fell in April. Flowering took place in late May in perfect conditions. Mid-June was hot, heavy rain at the end of the month and in mid-July proved to be enormously beneficial. The notorious 2003 heatwave arrived in the first two weeks of August. While the Douro is used to daytime temperatures in excess of 40℃, night-time temperatures staying above 30℃ are more unusual, and nerves were frayed. Rain fell again at the end of August. This was crucial to the quality of the fruit harvested a few days later.

Taylor’s began picking at São Xisto in the Douro Superior on 8 September, with the Cima Corgo growers downstream following a week or so later. Fine, abnormally warm weather continued until 29 September when the first autumn depression swept in from the Atlantic. By this time all the best wines had already been made. Although few shippers divulge the size of their declaration, in general the 2003 vintage amounted to about 30% less than 2000.

Best wines

• Croft
• Dow’s
• Fonseca
• Graham
• Quinta do Noval
• Taylor
• Warre

2002

Drink now

After high hopes at the outset, 2002 proved to be something of a damp squib due to a wet harvest.

2/5

Vintage summary

Winter was dry and there was very little rain during the summer, although fortunately without any of the extreme heat that can burn the grapes on the vine. Rain in early September helped to swell the berries and by the middle of the month the grapes were in near-perfect condition. However, just as picking commenced in the Cima Corgo, the weather broke and for most it became a stop-start vintage between bouts of torrential rain. The rain continued on and off well into October. Those who managed to pick before the rain (mostly in the Douro Superior) had small quantities of good, possibly outstanding wines.

2001

Drink

Mid-weight wines, mostly single-quinta. Soft and supple now.

3/5

Vintage summary

After one of the wettest winters since records began, mild and humid conditions led to an early bud-burst in March. From April onwards the weather cleared and only 110mm of rain fell until the end of August. With flowering taking place under optimum conditions and the ground-water supplies thoroughly replenished, there was a large crop. Temperatures were uneven during August but rain at the end of the month helped to swell the grapes. The weather was generally fine during picking with warm days and cold nights.

After a unanimous declaration in 2000, it would have been surprising if the main shippers had chosen to declare 2001 as well. Most declared either single-quinta Port or under their second label. The exception was Quinta do Noval, which declared Nacional – made in tiny quantities and certainly one of the best wines of the vintage.

Best wines

• Fonseca Guimaraens
• Niepoort Secundum
• Pocas
• Quinta da Terra Feit
• Quinta das Carvalhas
• Quinta dos Canais
• Quinta do Noval Nacional
• Quinta do Panascal
• Quinta do Vesuvio
• Quinta Senhora da Ribeira

2000

Keep

A small harvest produced fine, concentrated wines that were universally declared. Approach from now: the best will last a lifetime.

5/5

Vintage summary

After pleasantly wet weather during and following the 1999 harvest, the winter was cold and dry. Bud-burst occurred during this abnormally dry period and potential yields were reduced. Then, during April and May the heavens opened and half the normal annual rainfall fell in just two months. Flowering in late May coincided with heavy showers and cool weather, which caused coulure, particularly in the A-grade vineyards at lower altitudes which flower first. Yields were cut further as a result.

Warm, dry weather returned during June and July and the ripening was homogenous, occurring in mid-July. The dry weather continued through August. A few days of rain in mid-September helped to finish off ripening prior to the harvest, which began around 20 September. Yields per vine of little over half-a-kilo produced musts of extraordinary richness and concentration. As the sun continued to shine during picking, it became clear that a fine vintage was in the offing.

Overall the 2000 vintage is remarkable for the sheer depth of colour and richness that is evident in nearly all the wines. They are notable for their aromatic qualities together with their balance and harmony. The best match ripe, fleshy fruit with structure and concentration, while those that lack intensity merely show up as being sweet and rather one-dimensional.

Best wines

• Fonseca
• Graham’s
• Niepoort
• Quinta do Noval
• Quinta do Noval Nacional

Related articles

• Port vintage guide: 1960-1999
• Vintage Port 2000 and 2003: panel tasting results
• Cheese and Port matching guide

All five producers have a longstanding family tradition of making Port, even if – with the exception of Niepoort (a sixth generation Port shipper) – it was sold to shippers who, until 1986, enjoyed a monopoly over export sales.

Nowadays, the other members of this famous five – Quinta do Vallado, Quinta do Crasto, Van Zellers & Co and Quinta do Vale Meão – proudly append their own name to top flight Ports too. And they are ramping up fortified wine production.

To mark their 20th anniversary, the Douro Boys kicked off a two-day celebration with a once-in-a-lifetime tasting (for them and us) of fine and exceedingly rare Ports dating back to the 1860s.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 15 Ports from the Douro Boys’ 20th anniversary tasting

The arch collaborators also each contributed a soupçon from precious pipas (casks) for a moreish 950-bottle limited edition Douro Boys’ Anniversary Very Old Tawny Port. ‘You add a tiny amount of one wine, maybe one percent only, but this may dramatically change the character of the final blend,’ explained Cristiano van Zeller.

Since selling Quinta Vale D. Maria in 2017, he invested heavily in relaunching Van Zellers & Co as an independent Port shipper, having acquired an eye-popping collection of Very Old Tawny Ports from long-standing contacts. The black book is not so little when your family has been linked to the Douro since 1620 and once owned Quinta do Noval.

Claiming similarly distinguished roots, cousins Francisco Ferreira (Quinta do Vallado) and Francisco Olazábal (Quinta do Vale Meão) are descended from Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira who, respectively, owned and established their quintas during the 19th century.

For many years, grapes and Port wine were sold under the family’s Ferreira (Port shipper) brand and, famously, in Meão’s case, additionally for one of Portugal’s most renowned table wines, Barca Velha. Following Ferreira’s sale in 1987, both quintas switched their focus to Douro DOC wine.

But Port was not forgotten. Quinta do Vallado swiftly made its mark with mellifluous Tawny Ports with an indication of age (10, 20, 30 or 40-year-old) and impeccably sourced ultra-rare Very Old (19th century) Tawny Ports.

‘It has been a good decision to focus more and more on Port wine, because it is unique and the base of our region,’ said Ferreira; ‘Vallado was among the first to release a 50-year-old Tawny Port [the category was introduced last year],’ he added, proudly.

Once the Olazábal family took control of the property at Quinta do Vale Meão, they wasted no time making a Port with the extra grapes; fortuitously, 2000 was a terrific (generally declared) vintage.

Olazábal has set aside Tawny Port each year and Meão’s recently launched 10-Year-Old, will soon be joined by 20-year-Old and Colheita (single vintage) Tawny Ports. ‘Everything is from our own vineyard; we are one of the few producers who do that,’ he observed.

When he acquired Quinta do Crasto in 1918, Constantino de Almeida – founder of Constantino Port house – brought stock with him. Not even Miguel Roquette, his great grandson, has yet tasted the 1886 Colheita, of which just five bottles remain.

However, in commemoration of 400 years of wine production, precious 19th century Ports from de Almeida’s stock were blended to produce Quinta do Crasto Honore Very Old Tawny Port.

Roquette showed it alongside Quinta do Crasto Colheita 1997. ‘It was an important year because the family started to bottle Tawny Port again,’ said Roquette. Crasto will launch 30 and 40-year old Tawny Ports this year.

Being a shipper, Niepoort boasts a continuous Port winemaking tradition since 1842. During this time, successive generations of Niepoorts have worked alongside the Nogueira family, the shipper’s Master Blenders, forging a fine reputation for wood-aged Ports.

With its antique 19th century pipas and glass demijohns of aged stock, the company’s lodge in Vila Nova de Gaia provided an atmospheric setting for the tasting, it providing particularly handy when Dirk Niepoort decided, spontaneously, to fish out his grandfather’s earlier bottling of Niepoort VV Very Old Tawny for comparison with his own.

Both Ports were based on Niepoort’s magnificent 1863 pipa which produced a 2018 Lalique bottling (the world’s most expensive Port ever sold) and the outstanding bottling we tasted from 1992, Dirk’s eldest son’s birth year.

If you have followed the Douro Boys, new releases usually mean just that: young Douro DOC wines. But with the luxury of time to build stock, and now that Douro DOC wines are firmly on the map, all five Douro Boys are producing must-try mature Ports. Is there a better way to commemorate an anniversary?

15 Ports from the Douro Boys tasted and rated

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Port vintage guide: 2000-2022

Following a tradition established by pioneer Barossa winemaker Benno Seppelt – who laid down a barrel of vintage fortified with instructions not to issue it for 100 years – the 1923 Para Centenary Tawny was released on 16 February 2023 to coincide with the day the Seppelt family moved into its western Barossa homestead on the Seppeltsfield property in 1851.

While honouring and respecting history, Seppeltsfield has also broken with tradition this year by introducing new packaging it hopes is attuned to the tastes of a younger generation of wine collectors.

Each 100ml glass flask, looking more like an exotic perfume vessel than a wine bottle, is presented in a black wooden gift box emblazoned with the contemporary Seppeltsfield logo in blue, black and silver. The current owners first introduced this new branding to the Seppeltsfield still wine collection in 2018, taking inspiration from the Seppelt Estate’s crown and star trademark from 1877.

The 1923 Para Tawny is only available in 100ml vessels, each being hand-filled to order, numbered and authenticated for collectors, bearing the signatures of Seppeltsfield executive chairman and proprietor Warren Randall and friend of the winery Bill Seppelt, the great, great grandson of winery founders Joseph and Johanna Seppelt. It also features bottling dates, bottle numbers attached to the bottle via a neck tag and a QR code to link to tasting notes.

In previous years, 375ml bottles were available, but according to Seppeltsfield chief winemaker Fiona Donald, this has now stopped due to the scarcity of remaining stocks in Seppeltsfield’s Centenary Cellar. ‘Our intention is to ensure our historic Para Centennial Collection will remain relevant to fine wine collectors of the future,’ she said.

The first Para Centenary Tawny laid down by Benno Seppelt in 1878 comprised a single 500-litre puncheon. It was not until the late 1970s that Para Tawny stocks were increased to four puncheons for each vintage. Since Warren Randal took over Seppeltsfield, eight puncheons of each vintage are being reserved, but the 1923 vintage comprised only a single puncheon, and about 150 litres of this wine remains, due to about 3% volume lost each year to evaporation.

Its scarcity amplifies the value of the treasure contained within each bottle. The 1923 Tawny boasts extraordinary intensity, yet has surprising freshness on entry, showing a squeeze of mandarin and bright raisin before a gentle, cascading descent into much darker tones – interwoven layers of Seville orange, scorched grapefruit marmalade, panforte, dark cocoa, dark toffee, molasses. The extraordinary length and persistence of the final notes are what makes this wine mesmerising, enabled by beautifully balanced acidity that prevents cloying sweetness in such an intense flavour marriage.

This new release stands in stark difference to the 1922 Para Vintage Tawny, which exhibited much darker, savoury flavour tones, like hazelnut liqueur framed with the bite of dried wild herbs. The striking contrast underlines Donald’s believe that vintage variation plays a significant role in each 100-year-old fortified wine.

‘When I first started working with Para Centenary Tawny 13 years ago, I assumed that all wines of such profound age would look the same – and this is completely incorrect,’ she said. ‘The personality of each wine is framed by each different vintage, which is very accurately captured in this incredible fortified time capsule,’ she said.

Seppeltsfield 1923 100-Year-Old Para Vintage Tawny is available in the UK via Bancroft Wines (RRP £1,200, including sales tax), and in the US via LEGEND imports (US RRP $1,650). It is also available from Seppeltsfield Cellar Door or via seppeltsfield.com.au with shipping possible worldwide. 

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Starting his career in the British Cavalry Regiment the 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards, Bridge moved to Portugal in 1994 and is now CEO of The Fladgate Partnership, which produces Taylor, Fonseca, Fonseca-Guimaraens, Krohn and Croft Ports. Bridge has been a driving force behind wine tourism in Porto, opening The Yeatman Hotel in 2010 and developing the city’s new Cultural Quarter including the World of Wine in 2020. 

‘We can help to deseasonalise Port; try to encourage consumers to have Port at other times of the year, Port is not just for Christmas. People’s perception is well I’ll have a small glass of Port after Christmas lunch, because it’s traditional, to actually then giving people the confidence to enjoy Port and try it at different times of the year.’

‘Our White Port & Tonic and Pink Port & Tonic in a can are all about convenience. It’s also about different consumption moments. And it’s probably about a different consumer. We’re talking about more of a millennial than a traditional consumer. And that’s great. There’s a Port for everybody.’

‘I’m lucky because I get quite a large number of Ports to try. But at Christmas I think it is a special moment because you’ve got family around. So I want to open some good old vintage Ports, because those tend to be the special bottles you’re keeping for special occasions and I think Christmas with the family is a special occasion.’

‘What vintages are drinking well? The 70s are still wonderful – the 77s – and the 85s are great. Recently I’ve had some of the 92s and 94s and really enjoyed those.’

‘At 1828 steakhouse we serve young vintage Ports with the steak – and I find that a tremendously good combination. The latest young vintage is packed with fruit and lusciousness and actually the sweetness of that goes so well with the meat.’

‘On Christmas Eve we tend to do bacalhau which is Portuguese salted cod, done one way or another. But my favourite is probably bacalhau com natas, which is bacalhau with potato and cream, baked in the oven.’

‘I’ve had Christmases in all sorts of places: Antarctica was pretty interesting. When we arrived we had a white-out, which meant doing nothing for about a week, because you couldn’t see which way was up. I remember there was a major shortage of alcohol, because everything in Antarctica has to be flown in. So if you didn’t bring it with you: tough. We were with some South Africans who drank most of what they brought with them fairly swiftly – and prices of a bottle of whisky were $10,000.’

‘I’ve also done Christmas in St Lucia – I remember dressing up as Father Christmas on the beach.’

‘I’m a strong believer that there’s a wine for every occasion. And there are certain places in the world where people make fantastic wines. I love Champagne, but I’m particularly fond of Rieslings from Alsace.’

‘I think Riesling is a wonderful grape. The most recent one that I tried was from Portugal which tasted incredible. It had a very petroleum nose, very similar to an Alsacian, so I was quite surprised by that. It was from North Alentejo.’

‘I gave up coffee about 24 years ago. But the exception is Italy. I’ll have a cappuccino, if I’m on an Italian piazza in the morning, in Florence or somewhere, sitting with a nice cappuccino, thinking “Yes, I’m in Italy, living la dolce vita: me and my coffee”.’

‘I’m very privileged because it is difficult to tire of the Douro. But I also think I’m quite restless. I like to go and explore other places. I love mountains because I climb mountains, I feel solitude in mountains and I feel really in awe of nature – which I guess is what you get with the Douro as well. You look around you and can only be in awe of nature.’

‘This summer we were in Svalbard, looking at polar bears from a ship, well above the Arctic Circle. We spotted lots – it was great. I also went swimming, which was a bit chilly…’

‘I’m a bit of a history buff. I love history. I read a lot of history.’

‘I’ve had a very interesting career because I did six years in the British Army. Then I went into banking, which I loved, for six years. Then my father-in-law asked me to come over here and take on the challenge of this company. So I took over running the business in 98 and I formally took on the role on 1 January 2000.’

‘The latest reorganisation is to move the company out of the historic centre of Porto over the course of decades – that project started about 2010 – and moving it out so that we can convert that city centre to content that enriches the entire tourist offer of the city, and northern Portugal and Portugal itself.’

‘The Yeatman has helped to transform the city of Porto, has helped create an entire leisure destination which is booming, which has encouraged lots of other people to invest and as a result probably transformed lots of lives and to feel that I kind of had a part in that, at the beginning, that feels like a life well spent.’

‘Porto has this incredible history. It’s got amazing architecture. It’s got wonderful people, and it’s got lovely traditions of food. It’s obviously got a wine tradition – it’s one of the few places in the world that has a wine named after it. And yet, it never really had a hotel to do it justice. And that was what The Yeatman was about.’

‘In hospitality, you have to anticipate your customer’s needs and good service is normally when you have anticipated the customer’s needs before the customer knew what they needed.’

‘We want people to go away from The Yeatman thinking that they’ve had a really nice experience. And if you’ve had a nice experience, you’ll have a positive view of Porto. And then if we’ve given you a nice Port tasting, you have a positive view of Port, which is our core product. The advantage of all of that is we’ve got a little bit of your soul, a little bit of your attention. You’re saying: “Oh Port, yes, I remember when I went to Porto and that was a very special moment.” That, to me, is what wine tourism is about. If you can capture a little piece of people’s soul, so each time they see the product they’re reminded of something positive, then that’s so much more powerful than any marketing you could ever do.’

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Richard Mayson, Shane Jones and Demetri Walters MW tasted 24 wines, with 7 Outstanding and 10 Highly recommended.

Vintage Port 2000 and 2003 panel tasting scores

24 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 7

Highly recommended 10

Recommended 4

Commended 1

Fair 1

Poor 1

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their single vintage Ports from 2000 and 2003, including single quinta bottlings but not colheita

As a rule of thumb, 21 years marks the coming of age for both an adult and for a vintage Port. So it was with great interest that we revisited two millennial vintages potentially on the cusp of adulthood and maturity.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores from the vintage Port 2000 and 2003 panel tasting

At the outset, 2000 and 2003 were very different years in the Douro. Cool and wet weather early in the 2000 growing season led to a low-yielding vintage, especially in the leading A-grade vineyards that are the basis for vintage Port.

The summer was hot and dry – though not unduly so – and picking took place in perfect sunshine. Yields of little more than 0.5kg per vine produced musts of great richness and concentration. For Graham’s, it was a landmark vintage as it was the first in which about a third of the wine was made in what were, at the time, new-fangled robotic lagares (large, flat open tanks equipped with mechanical ‘treaders’ for crushing the grapes).

By contrast, 2003 was marked by a very hot summer. The first blast of heat came in mid-June and the thermometer rose above 40°C on a daily basis from late July though to mid-August (even the nights remained abnormally warm). Fortunately, the wet winter that came before meant there was plenty of groundwater, and ripening, though hampered by the heat, was fairly even. Some sugar readings were extraordinarily high by mid-September. The heat continued through the early part of the 2003 harvest and fermentations needed to be very carefully managed. For Croft, having recently been acquired by Taylor Fonseca, this was the first harvest since 1963 to be foot-trodden.

These contrasting conditions were fully displayed in this tasting. The 2000s (average score 92.5pts) showed definition and poise, with the best wines only just ready to drink and promising a long life ahead. Shane Jones thought 2000 was ‘the star of the show… with concentration and freshness from more balanced acidity’. Demetri Walters MW felt that both years were ‘bold, vivid and full of personality’ but described the 2000s as ‘altogether more contained, backward, grippy, fresher in acidity and fruit character’.

All members of the panel remarked on the ripeness (verging on overripeness) of the 2003s (average score 89pts). Too many wines were ‘stewed’, ‘cooked’ or ‘soupy’, lacking the poise (at least at this stage) of the 2000s. ‘Jammy’ was my verdict on many of the 2003s. As a result, we all felt that the 2000s were the wines that were going to last the course (beyond 2050 for the best). Walters concluded: ‘In absolute quality and longevity, the 2000s have it.’

But 2003 is not in any way a year to be written off – as the scores here show. There are those (including the Port shippers themselves) who favour a hot year: ‘Harder to make and, like all hot years, take much longer to come around,’ in the words of David Guimaraens, head winemaker for The Fladgate Partnership, producer of Taylor’s, Fonseca, Croft and Krohn. That may apply to the very best of the 2003s but, as things stand, the 2000s are the wines that will give the most pleasure.

Vintage Port 2000 and 2003 panel tasting scores

The judges

Richard Mayson is the DWWA Regional Chair for Port & Madeira and series editor of the Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library. The 4th edition of his book Port and the Douro was published in 2018 (£35) and the 5th edition is due out in 2023. Find his work at richardmayson.com.

Shane Jones is an independent wine and sake educator, certified by the WSET and Sake Sommelier Association. A DWWA judge for Port & Madeira, he is based in London but teaches around the UK, as well as in France and Germany.

Demetri Walters MW is an independent wine consultant, educator, online and TV presenter and judge. He formerly worked over 18 years in varying roles for merchant Berry Bros & Rudd, and became a Master of Wine in 2013. He publishes his own website demetriwalterswine.com.

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The £25,000 collection, of which only 30 will be produced, includes six classic Graham’s Vintage Ports and six Single Harvest Tawny Ports, with the first edition due to be auctioned by Christie’s in December.

Founded in 1820, Graham’s marked its bicentennial in 2020, but the launch of the cabinet was delayed until now because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Graham’s said the collection included wines that had been ‘hailed as some of the greatest declarations of the last two centuries’, including classic vintage Ports from 1963, 1994 and 2011.

Each wine was selected by a different member of the third, fourth and fifth generations of the Symington family, who have been involved in Port since 1882, and who have owned Graham’s since 1970.

The classic vintage Ports have been ageing in Graham’s cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia since bottling, while the single harvest tawnies were bottled specifically for the Graham’s Bicentenary Collection.

‘The release of the Bicentenary Collection has huge significance for us as a family business, marking not only the illustrious history of Graham’s and the unparalleled excellence of the wines, but our commitment to continuing to build on these foundations for many years to come,’ said Johnny Symington, chairman of Symington Family Estates.

‘Each wine in the cabinet bears personal significance to a member of the third, fourth or fifth generation of our family, representing as they do the past, present and future of our business.’

The cabinets are made from rare santos rosewood – sourced from sustainably managed forests – by Portuguese master joiners Wewood.

They also contain a decanter and set of wine glasses created by Jancis Robinson MW in partnership with British designer Richard Brendon, a two-part Durand corkscrew designed to remove corks from mature and valuable fine wines, and a decanting funnel made by Porto-based silversmith Ourivesaria Coutinho.

The first collection will be auctioned by Christie’s in December, with all proceeds to be split between charities Scottish Wildlife Trust and Santa Casa da Misericordia de Carrazeda.

The remaining 29 cabinets will be made to order for delivery from January 2023. Expressions of interest should be emailed to: bicentenarycollection@grahams-port.com.

The Graham’s Bicentenary Collection:

Graham’s Single Harvest Tawny Ports: 1961, 1976, 1982, 1995, 2000 and 2006.

Graham’s Vintage Ports: 1963, 1970, 1985, 1994, 1997 and 2011.

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The 2020 vintage marks the 10th Port declaration in a row for Quinta do Noval. This emblematic and highly visible estate in the Pinhão Valley has always taken a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to vintage Port.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for a decade of Quinta do Noval releases

For example, it was one very few houses to declare the 1931 vintage at a time when there seemed to be no market for the wine. The Noval 1931 has subsequently gained legendary status. Indeed I can vouch for this, having tasted the wine last year and been taken aback by its enduring tannic grip, extraordinary length and pizazz.

Noval continued to do its own thing through the 1970s and 1980s when the quality of the wines from this magnificent property sadly fell somewhat below par. It was rescued by AXA Millésimes in 1993 when Christian Seely took charge and spent the next decade ‘putting things right’ to use his own words.

With money to invest, the vineyard was largely replanted and the winemaking thoroughly overhauled. Continuity was maintained by the technical director, António Agrellos, who retired after 24 years at the end of 2017 to be succeeded by his nephew Carlos.

Estates and terroir

Noval now extends to over 180ha and spills over from the Pinhão Valley to neighbouring Roncão, both tributaries of the Douro. Nicknamed ‘roasted Roncão’ because of the intense heat, Seely points out that these two very different terroirs now contribute to the vintage blend with Roncão having ‘harder schist’ than Pinhão (‘just in case you thought all schist was the same’).

In 2018 Noval bought up Quinta do Passadouro, a contiguous estate in the Pinhão Valley which will continue to produce its own Ports and red wines.

The altitude of the estate now extends from 100m above sea level to 500m. The diversity of grape varieties (mostly Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Sousão and Tinto Cão), exposures and altitudes means that in most years picking will take place over six weeks or more, starting in late August for the white grapes.

In 2020 however the harvest was compressed into just over three weeks as all the different varieties seemed to ripen together which tested the capacity of the winery, mid-pandemic.

Quality and quantity

Looking back over the decade, the 2010s have been remarkable for Port. Shippers were spoilt for choice and some declared an unprecedented three years in a row. Noval has done it differently, declaring a wine every year from the outstanding (and universally declared) 2011 vintage onwards. When challenged, Seely says the wines speak for themselves.

‘Which of these do you think is not worthy of declaration? I wouldn’t have declared if I didn’t think the wine justified it,’ he says. He adds that ‘vintage Port is a maximum of 15% of the total production of Noval’ with quantities varying over the last decade from 6,000 9-litre cases in 2016 to just 700 in 2014. In that year the strictest selection was vital to maintain quality.

The Nacional vineyard

Literally at the heart of the estate is the 1.6ha Nacional vineyard, an extraordinary patch of ungrafted vines that has survived on its own roots, post-phylloxera. The name derives from the fact that the vines are directly rooted in ‘the soil of the nation’. The Nacional vineyard is much less vigorous than the surrounding vineyard with yields about half of that elsewhere on the estate. This makes for wines with extraordinary power and concentration, but also finesse.

The plot has been certified organic since 2013 and is worked manually and ploughed by mule. Production is usually 200-300 cases in a declared year (the 1931 Nacional is now so rare that it is unobtainable).

Noval makes a Nacional wine every year but it only sees light of day if it is truly up to scratch. For example Seeley reports that the 2015 Nacional is ‘very, very tannic and closed’ and may never be released. He calls these bottlings the ‘secret Nacionals’.

So far five Nacional wines have been released in the last decade including 2020. Seely says: ‘There are years when we know straight after treading in lagar that we will be declaring a Nacional Vintage Port – and 2020 was one of these’. He describes it as ‘outstanding from the beginning’ and looking at my note on the wine (below) it is hard to disagree. Half the production is being released now with the rest kept back for future release.

Colheitas

Seely is a convert to colheita Port, wines from a single harvest that are kept in pipe (barrel) to soften and age like a tawny Port prior to bottling. Noval has been laying down colheitas since the 1990s – ‘I wish I had laid down more’ comments Seely. There is speculation that a Nacional Colheita may be among the so-called ‘secret Nacionals’.

The most recent Noval Colheita to be released is the 2009, about a quarter of which was bottled earlier this year with the rest kept back to bottle later.

The decade of wines listed below are a fitting tribute to two generations of the Argellos family who look after the estate and the winemaking. They are also testament to the work done by Seely, who has spent nearly 20 years re-capturing the soul of Noval, steering it back to its rightful place as one of the great terroirs of the Douro. Never one to run with the herd, Quinta do Noval retains its idiosyncratic and individualistic spirit.

See tasting notes and scores for a decade of Quinta do Noval releases

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Prima & Ultima – meaning ‘first and last’ – showcases whiskies that are exactly that: either the first or the last of their kind. The eight single malts in this year’s line-up were chosen by Diageo master blender Dr Craig Wilson, following in the footsteps of previous Prima & Ultima creators Maureen Robinson and Dr Jim Beveridge OBE.

The whiskies include the final Brora bottling from 1981, and spirit from the last two casks of Port Ellen filled in 1980, as well as single malts from Royal Lochnagar, Cragganmore, Mannochmore, The Singleton of Glen Ord, Lagavulin and Talisker.

‘I have personally selected each whisky with great care, each an exceptional spirit marking a special time in the distilleries’ history and whiskies that I’ve had the privilege to watch mature,’ said Dr Wilson.

The theme of this year’s collection is ‘A Moment in Time’, linked to the natural preservation of fossils and specimens, with each whisky allocated a precious artefact that reflects its story.

Priced at £36,500 in the UK, there are 317 full sets of Prima & Ultima Third Release available through appointed agents, and for the first time whiskies are also available for individual purchase. Online registration of interest is open now, until 30 June, at www.theprimaandultimacollection.com.

Tasting notes

Royal Lochnagar 1981, 40-Year-Old

The result of a mysterious experiment designed to reduce the angels’ share (evaporation) as whisky matures, this is a delicate, fragrant, beautifully expressive single malt from one of Diageo’s smallest and most photogenic distilleries. Highly floral, with lavender and jasmine on the nose and ginger, honey and light oak tannin on the palate.

Alc 52.5%

Cragganmore 1973, 48-Year-Old

The oldest release of Cragganmore to date, this was distilled soon after steam replaced coal in heating the stills. It’s as smooth as a velvet smoking jacket and unctuously fruity – cassis, then peach and nectarine. The assertive oak brings a drying, nutty dimension alongside toffee, with always the tang of dark marmalade lurking in the background.

Alc 44.8%

Mannochmore 1990, 31-Year-Old

The lesser-spotted, malty Mannochmore, made even rarer by its experimental maturation for almost three decades in highly active, virgin European oak. Charred bitter orange peel, spice rack flavours, coffee roaster and opulent aromas of well-polished antique bureau. A rich, deep single malt for fans of cask-driven whiskies.

Alc 45.1%

Brora 1981, 40-Year-Old

Brora is a chameleon, embracing everything from dark smoke to waxy, juicy fruit. This final release from 1981, combining American oak hogshead and European oak Sherry butt, displays a little of everything: honeyed fruit, snuffed candle, shaved nutmeg and a gentle wisp of peat smoke. The star of this year’s show.

Alc 44.1%

The Singleton of Glen Ord 1987, 34-Year-Old

A single malt to linger over when nosing – this is a massively fragrant, floral, fine whisky, with notes of ginger snap, bright fruit and an elusive wisp of smoke, possibly from the refill American oak. Remarkably lively, but also deep and broad, with a sweet finish. Add water for honeysuckle and gentle vanilla.

Alc 49.4%

Lagavulin 1993, 28-Year-Old

Showing Lagavulin’s darker side thanks to ageing in European and American oak, this is a richly fruited malt that will delight fans of Laga 16. Juicy blackcurrant and raspberry, then classic distillery notes of beach bonfire and iodine. Lapsang flavours are swiftly smothered by sweet black cherry and a compelling vinosity.

Alc 50.1%

Talisker 1984, 37-Year-Old

The finest Taliskers are a harmonious balancing act of salt, smoke and sweetness, with just a pinch of chilli heat. Here the chimney soot smoke is quite assertive, but always the distillery’s classic maritime salinity persists, with some alluringly sweet fruit in the background. A savoury, silky whisky redolent of warm summer days on a Skye beach.

Alc 51.9%

Port Ellen 1980, 41-Year-Old

Commemorating HM Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to Port Ellen in 1980, this is the oldest release yet from the distillery. Remarkably high in alcohol for a 41-year-old whisky, it’s full-on, quintessential Port Ellen, with robust flavours of dying coal fire and a drying effect on the palate, elevated by beguiling flavours of honeydew melon. Beautifully textured, with a long, savoury finish of Iberico ham.

Alc 59.6%

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Cloaked in a network of terraced vineyards that stretch out from both banks of the river which gave the region its name, it is not hyperbole to call the Douro valley jaw-dropping in beauty and tranquil in mood.

A notable feature of this breathtaking region are the whitewashed buildings emblazoned with the name of the estate (quinta) which owns the surrounding land. Many of these belong to major Port houses and have become avidly followed brands in their own right – think Quinta dos Malvedos (Graham’s), Quinta de Vargellas (Taylor’s), Quinta do Bomfim (Dow’s), Quinta da Cavadinha (Warre’s) and Quinta da Roêda (Croft).

In the great years which are declared as a vintage, the grapes from these vineyards will go into the blend for the top wine: the classic vintage Port of the house.

However, huge improvements in winemaking from the 1980s onwards means the production of a good vintage Port is much less of a hit-and-miss affair, so, even in undeclared years, wines of potential vintage quality can be made and are bottled by the major shippers as ‘single quinta’ Ports.

However, the category is not merely the domain of Port’s heavyweights. There are a plethora of dynamic, independent single quintas whose vintage wine is released most, if not every, year whether or not a general declaration is made. These estates run the gamut in terms of size, ranging from properties which appear to be little more than small-scale start-ups to sprawling estates such as the 326ha Quinta do Vesuvio.

Other quintas to look out for include Vale Meão, de la Rosa, Passadouro, Roriz and Noval, which is owned by AXA Millésimes, proprietors of Château Pichon Baron in Pauillac.

As for vinification, single quinta is made in a manner which echoes that of vintage Port: matured in barrel for two to three years, before being bottled unfined and unfiltered (a decanter is still needed). The only other distinctions are that the wines are less expensive and can be ready to drink earlier – after 10, rather than 20 years, say.

As well as demanding less of both your patience and wallet, a further boon for the wine lover who likes to go granular is that, when following a quinta year after year, you are given an evolving snapshot of prime Douro terroir.

Single quinta vintage Ports: In the glass

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Taylor’s expects the 2020 vintage to show ‘elegance and structure’, while Quinta do Noval said the wines promise density, harmony and richness.

Port Houses only declare a vintage when at least one of their vineyard plots yields exceptional fruit. Taylor’s has decided that Quinta de Vargellas, located in the wild and hilly eastern reaches of the Douro Valley, fits the bill for 2020.

It is just the 15^th time since 1980 that Quinta de Vargellas has declared a vintage. It also declared in 2019, marking the Quinta’s first back-to-back declarations since 2001 and 2002.

Adrian Bridge, managing director at the Fladgate Partnership, which owns Taylor’s, Fonseca, Croft and Krohn, said: ‘We are delighted with the Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas Vintage 2020 which shows the elegance and structure that we associate with this excellent property.

‘This vintage will remain in our cellars and will be released at a later date, thus satisfying the future demand for Single Quinta Vintage Ports.’

Quinta do Noval reported an unusually short harvest in 2020, which witnessed a very hot summer, but it was suitably impressed with the quality of the grapes.

It has declared Quinta do Noval Nacional Vintage Port 2020 and Quinta do Noval Vintage Port 2020.

Managing director Christian Seely said: ‘We were aware from the beginning that the Nacional was outstanding, and the wine has developed wonderfully since the harvest. There are years when we know straight after the treading in lagar that we will be declaring a Nacional Vintage Port, and 2020 was one of these.

‘The wine displays the complexity and many-layered profundity that are typical of a great Nacional.’

Sogevinus Group, which owns the Kopke, Burmester, Cálem and Barros brands, declared 2020 to be a classic vintage. The extreme weather and constraints caused by the Covid-19 pandemic led to a challenging harvest, and yields are low across the region, but Sogevinus reported a strong skin-to-pulp and a high sugar content, which allows for longer fermentations and exemplary extraction of colour and tannins.

‘The harvest was marked by a series of adversities that made this one of the most challenging years in my career,’ said master blender Carlos Alves. ‘Despite the adversity, this was a vintage that exceeded all expectations, and from which we believe we have produced wines of excellent quality, with very refined tannins, displaying a certain elegance in the wines.’

David Guimaraens, Taylor’s head winemaker, echoed those sentiments. He said there is ‘no living memory’ of such a hot July and that the extreme conditions repeatedly led to the unwanted phenomenon of scorching. However, August was cooler than usual in 2020, which accelerated the ripening of the grapes. 

He said the 2020 season will be characterised for its extremely low yields, resulting directly from the climatic conditions of the year. The conditions were similar to the 2009 and 1820 harvests, where the sugar levels reached extraordinarily high levels.

‘The variability of locations in the mountain viticulture of the Douro Valley plays a key role in extreme years like this, allowing the production of excellent Port wines as is the case of this Quinta de Vargellas 2020,’ added Guimaraens.

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In the late 19th century, Eduard Karel Jacob van der Niepoort, the second generation of the Niepoort family of Port winemakers, had the novel idea of buying 4,000 old apothecary demijohns. He wanted to use them for the maturation of the family’s wines.

These distinctive squat, dark-green glass bottles, between eight and 11 litres in volume, proved very effective. So effective that in 1931, his son (also an Eduard) decided they should be used for extended maturation of the best wines of the vintage.

Thus was created Porto Garrafeira. The Niepoort family felt this style would set a new benchmark of quality and refinement for the fortified wines of the Douro Valley.

Porto Garrafeira is a style that combines both oxidative and reductive ageing. Essentially it is a vintage dated tawny with subsequent minimum ageing in glass. First, the wine is aged oxidatively in wood for a minimum period of four to eight years. It is then aged for a minimum of 15 years in demijohns (Niepoort also refers to them as ‘bonbons’).

Official recognition

The Niepoort family may have minted this new style nearly a century ago, but Porto Garrafeira’s special status was only officially recognised as recently as late 2021. This is when the Institut do Vinos Porto y Douro (IVDP) introduced rules to enshrine the style in Port wine law.

For a Porto Garrafeira to receive IVDP approval, the date of storage in demijohns and quantities made must be communicated to the IVDP. Sales of these Ports are then only permitted after the minimum ageing referred to above.

In the glass

So much for the regulation, but how does a rare bottling like Porto Garrafeira taste? Due to the combination of long oxidative and reductive ageing, these wines display an especially seductive mix of mature and fresh fruit character.

The ageing in demijohns, in particular, is thought by some to add a unique cheiro da garrafa (‘smell or savour of the bottle’) for which it’s hard to find a direct parallel in other Port styles.

For its part, the IVDP notes: ‘As we have very high quality and both oxidative and reductive ageing, a great combination of sensations, aromas and flavours can be present. The flavours are taken to a dimension where the wine is at once complex, fine and balanced. The aromas can be as diverse as fresh red fruits, spices and chocolate, combined with notes of dried fruit and cigar box.’

Singular style

Currently Niepoort is the only Port house that produces Porto Garrafeira Port. It is, after all, the only one with a collection of several thousand old apothecary demijohns. The latest Niepoort Garrafeira release is from 1987, though 1983 and 1977 vintages have also been bottled.

A few fortunate souls will also have had the privilege of tasting the oldest Garrafeira Port the family has ever made – from vintage 1863. (In 2018 a Lalique decanter of this particular vintage became the most expensive single bottle of Port ever sold.) In this case, a very rare wine indeed, and one perhaps deserving of its own special category.

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Port is a delectable drink.

A Vintage’s nuanced complexity is worth investing years of cellar space for, a Tawny’s layered organoleptic profile is a surprisingly versatile food-pairing tool, and a White Port makes for a superlative summer beverage – ideally with a splash of dry tonic water, some ice, and a sprig of mint. Despite its qualities, Port has long been struggling to match its status and fascinating history with a comparable degree of enthusiasm among younger wine drinkers. Yet, Port might have found in a new generation of industry leaders its ace in the hole.

Zoe Graham entered her family business as Churchill’s sales and marketing director just before the pandemic broke out, after a decade spent working for Moët Hennessy in Paris and London and brand consultancy firm Flamingo, in São Paulo, Brazil. Since then, she’s been busy rejuvenating the image of Churchill’s Port, which her father Johnny founded in 1981.

‘One of the challenges we face today is how to re-introduce Port to a new generation of drinkers… It’s a category that people don’t really understand. It’s not just something that sits in a cabinet and that you serve after dinner. It’s a living, breathing, elegant wine… We want to let the wine do the talking,’ she says, hinting at the reasoning that led her to rebrand Churchill’s Port.

A two-year undertaking, the recently unveiled rebrand empathises with modern wine drinkers by integrating elements that symbolise care for the environment and a less stuffy, more social aspect of Port consumption into its logo. Churchill’s wine is also dressed in a slicker, more contemporary packaging. ‘What type of restaurants do people want to go to? What beauty products do they use? It’s always about top quality ingredients so… I wanted to elevate the look and feel [of the bottles] to fit that sort of profile,’ Graham says.

The redesign involved the introduction of minimalist, diamond-shaped labels too, elegantly monochrome for all Ruby expressions and somewhat chromatically diverse for the Tawnies (see below).

Combined with the liquid’s vibrant colour clearly visible through the bottle’s white glass, the Tawnies’ more colourful aesthetic is designed to tap into the growing appeal of aperitifs by presenting them as convivial pre-dinner drinks. ‘We’re playing on that sense of occasion, shifting the cultural perception that Port always comes at the end of the meal. We need to [understand] people’s lifestyle and drinking habits, and find a place for Port within their drinking repertoire,’ she says.

Pushing Port as a mixable beverage may help establish the freshest Port categories as pre-meal drinks, too. ‘It definitely took a while to persuade my father to drink White Port with tonic [Portonic]. This is not something that he did initially. But he has come around to the idea that if this is a way to introduce new people to Port, then we should definitely be open to that.’

While she welcomes Port & Tonic as a valuable drinking experience, Graham rejects the wider cocktail route as a means to attract new wine lovers. She is particularly suspicious about the potential of recently launched ready-to-drink canned Port & Tonic cocktails to really benefit the category in the long term.

‘Portonic in cans is definitely something that’s moved the Port category. Whether it’s going to cut through the big budgets behind drinks in cans though, I’m not sure. But it’s not for us, we are a boutique brand and don’t have a production that could sustain those volumes. We need to go beyond cocktails. I’m not saying that you can’t push the category forward by putting Port in cans or [suggesting] new serves, but people just want to enjoy port as a wine.’

Rather than presenting it as a mixing ingredient, Graham believes that Port can maintain its ‘integrity intact’ by maximising the potential of oenotourism, capitalising on the growing number of younger consumers appealed by Port’s fascinating heritage.

‘One of the really exciting things in Portugal is that in 2019 we saw the biggest numbers in tourism coming into Porto and in the Douro, ever. And even though we have experienced a pause during Covid, those are not going away,’ she argues. ‘We have young, interested consumers coming to our region, which never used to happen. People are just desperate to learn more about this amazing wine.’

To enhance her educational efforts, Graham is also establishing a closer connection with wine lovers. In full second-wave lockdown, Churchill launched Port.Club, an initiative targeting both Port lovers as well as ‘Port curious’ drinkers. Essentially a subscription service, the club entitles members to a quarterly pack containing three bottles of Port of a diverse stylistic range: an everyday Port, a special-occasion one, and a Club Port uniquely crafted for members. The box features tasting notes and, crucially, online education experiences including virtual tastings with Churchill’s own founder Johnny Graham himself.

‘We must establish the communications channel and educate as many people as possible explaining that you can serve Port on different occasions. Once you do that, Port suddenly gets out of that nebulous confusion and people are converted.’

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Those of us who live for a good vintage Port have never had it so good. After declarations in 2016, 2017 and 2018, 2019 represents the fourth consecutive good year for Port.

But the 2019 vintage Ports (declared earlier this year and listed below) are the result of an erratic growing season, with a little over 50% of the average winter rainfall and almost none during the summer months.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Richard Mayson’s top Port 2019 bottles

Fortunately for the growers there was no extreme summer heat with June temperatures (a hot month in previous years) 4℃ below average.

Light rain at the end of August and again around the equinox served to swell the grapes and contributed to even ripening. Lower than average temperatures during vintage helped to preserve natural freshness and definition and allowed later ripening varieties to reach their full potential.

For those who held their nerve, the late-ripening Touriga Franca grape (often not picked until well into October) performed particularly well – often out-performing Touriga Nacional.

Yields were close to average in contrast with much smaller, more concentrated years in 2017 and 2018. The Symington family (owners of Cockburn, Dow, Graham, Warre and Quinta do Vesúvio) picked grapes over six weeks making this one of the longest harvests in recent years.

From the winemakers

The resulting wines are, in Charles Symington’s words, ‘lively and exuberant’ in contrast to the concentration from exceptionally small years in 2017 and 2018.

Christian Seely of Quinta do Noval (one of the top-scoring wines in this tasting) comments: ‘The purity, complexity and character of the 2019s reflect these ideal conditions.’ Noval also declared Quinta do Noval Nacional having bypassed 2018.

Luís Sottomayor from Ferreira and Sandeman describes 2019 as ‘a very good year with freshness and great balance’. While Márcio Nobrega, head of viticulture at Sogevinus, also highlights the freshness of the year describing the wines as ‘aromatic with assertive tannins’.

For Dirk Niepoort from the eponymous Port house, 2019 was ‘not as perfect as 2017’ – which was Niepoort’s last declaration – with 2019 ‘possibly bigger but still a very elegant year. The wines will come together, get richer and more “drinky”,’ he adds, though this is an optimistic expression to my mind.

At the launch of his 2019 Niepoort compared the wine to the successful 2000 vintage.

Single quintas

The Symingtons have bottled six single quinta vintage Ports from 2019. They have released two en primeur – Quinta do Vesúvio and Dow’s Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira – and are holding back stocks of the other wines for future release.

Having declared Taylors for an unprecedented three years in a row, the Fladgate Partnership (Croft, Fonseca and Taylor) is also withholding their wines for later release.

The 2019 wines are generally well-priced (especially the single quintas) varying from around £150 in bond for a case of six for Quinta de la Rosa, doubling to around £300 for Noval and £350 for Niepoort.

Some of the single quinta 2019s are already amazingly approachable if you like your Port young. However the more structured wines deserve to be kept for 15-20 years.

Some of the best wines have a green, leafy edge to them at this stage, which alongside the purity of fruit should serve for the long term, keeping well into the latter half of the 21st century.

See tasting notes and scores for Richard Mayson’s top Port 2019 bottles

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Prices on Port and Sherry could increase by around 13% in the UK if the government presses ahead with its duty tax reform as planned, according to industry leaders.

Producers and merchants have been left incensed by the plans, said the Wine & Spirit Trade Association (WSTA) today (9 December), following a meeting with members connected to fortified wine.

‘If you like a glass of Port or Sherry at Christmas we suggest you make the most of it this year [because] it might be priced out of your Christmas shop in the future,’ said Miles Beale, the WSTA’s CEO.

Industry bodies recently praised the government for freezing duty tax on alcohol, but there has been rising disquiet in the wine trade about duty tax reform. A key tenet of the new ‘simplified’ system would be the basic principle of ‘the stronger the drink, the higher the rate’, ministers have said.

Sparkling wine would see its tax burden reduced but some other wines could see their tax bill rise. A government consultation has opened on the plans, which would be implemented from February 2023.

‘I do believe that the politicians drawing up these proposals have no intention of damaging the fortified category, but if the proposals remain unchanged it will result in the retail price of a bottle of Port increasing overnight by £1.09,’ said Steve Moody, MD and chairman of importer Fells.

‘That’s an immediate increase of more than 13%,’ he said. Fells imports Symington Family Estates Ports, such as Graham’s and Dow’s, as well as Blandy Madeira, Pellegrino Marsala and Barbadillo sherries.

Andrew Hawes, MD of importer Mentzendorff, said, ‘Local wine merchants up and down the country are aghast at the suggested tax rises which will see their popular Port and Sherry brands, such as Taylor’s and La Gitana, take on the largest single alcohol tax rises in UK history.’

Melissa Draycott, MD of González Byass UK, said, ‘As passionate producers we have been working hard to pass on the sector’s rich heritage and introduce a new generation to the joys of a beautifully crafted Sherry, through its use in lower alcohol cocktails or served alongside food.

‘However, the proposed duty rise would create a significant barrier to purchasing this festive favourite which has enjoyed a strong role in British culture for centuries.’

She added, ‘Although Port and Sherry have a higher abv than wine they are traditionally enjoyed in smaller measures on special occasions as an aperitif or at the end of a meal.’

Port sales at retailers in the UK – the so-called ‘off-trade’ – were set to rise by 4% in 2021, to 8.8m bottles, the WSTA said.

The consultation period for the proposed duty reform ends on 30 January.

Introducing the consultation document, Helen Whately MP, exchequer secretary to the Treasury, wrote, ‘The system we are setting out today represents a pragmatic balance between the social, economic and fiscal considerations that affect alcohol duty.’ She said the proposed system was based on logical principles.

In particular, the government has been keen to highlight its efforts to support pubs and the wider hospitality sector. Final plans were due to be set out next year.

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In July this year the Douro and Port Wine Institute (IVDP) announced the creation of a new Port wine category: ’50-year-old’. This comes as an addition to the existing 10-, 20-, 30- and 40-year-old categories and applies to both red (ie tawny) and white Ports.

It’s fair to say that there hasn’t been a rush among the shippers to bottle 50-year-old Port (not many shippers have the wines to draw on). But Kopke, with its relatively large stocks of well-kept, aged tawnies is the first Port house to launch wines in the 50-year-old category. I was fortunate to taste both the white and tawny Ports prior to their launch at the end of vintage this year.

It should be emphasised that, like the other age categories, 50-year-old is an indication of age rather than a specific age. If you are looking for a wine from a single year head for colheita (tawny or white Port from a single harvest) or vintage.

The art of blending

Both Kopke 50-year-olds are expressions in the art of blending and fine tuning. As Carlos Alves, head winemaker at Kopke, pointed out at a blending workshop for the 50-year-old White Port, the youngest wine in the blend is about 48 years old and the oldest is 60. The youngest wine with its aromatic greengage freshness is complemented by the heady, honeyed richness and the quiemada (singed) character of the older wines in the blend. With a certain amount of alchemy, at the end of the blending process the final wine is considerably greater than the sum of its parts.

The wines that go into these 50-year-olds originate from an enviable portfolio of cask-aged wines that is unique to Kopke, especially the whites. Dating back to 1638, Kopke is the oldest of all the Port wine houses and has built up a fine reputation for its barrel-aged Ports.

Vinho dos anjos

The costs involved in keeping these wines in cask for such a long amount of time are significant. It’s not just the capital tied up in the wine itself but also the labour involved in racking and nurturing the wines in barrel – as well as the considerable amount of wine lost to evaporation. In the case of these 50-year-olds, Alves estimates that about two-thirds of the initial stock has been lost to the atmosphere (the so-called vinho dos anjos or angel’s share).

Prior to the final blending, it is this oxidative ageing process that shapes both of these wines. It is responsible for the amber-tawny to olive green hues, the concentration and subtlety of flavour, the mellifluous sweetness and sublime length.

These 50-year-old Ports are not cheap, but like other wines subject to prolonged oxidative ageing (a Madeira for example) you can revisit the bottle over quite a long period of time – happily for six weeks or more if you keep them in the fridge. There can be no finer way to celebrate Christmas and the New Year than with one of these new 50-year-olds. They are wines that will just keep on giving.

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There is a Port for all seasons if you know where to look.

When the weather turns cold, there is nowhere like the Douro Valley for capturing the warmth of summer. The slatey schistous soils and drought-resistant grape varieties combine to produce wines that can be wonderfully satisfying in their first flush of youth or transform into something gloriously ethereal with age.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 15 top seasonal Ports

Colder months

Deeper, darker fruit-driven styles tend to be the first choice for the winter months.

Ruby, crusted, late bottled vintage (LBV) and vintage Ports have provided centuries of central heating for adults (with apologies to the Ready Brek advert!).

Warmer months

Tawnies and colheitas are my choice for warmer, even hot days when they can be supremely and sublimely refreshing. These wines – bottled either with an indication of age or the year of harvest (‘colheita’) – are aged in cask until their youthful ruby colour and spicy tannins fall away.

They should be served cellar cool to capitalise on their subtlety and silky smoothness. And they don’t need to be drunk in one go: you can return to an aged tawny over the period of a month or so if the wine is kept cool in the fridge.

Don’t miss out on dry white Port, where the same ageing rules now apply as to tawnies. I am usually too much of a purist to be a fan of wine as a mixer, but an aged dry white Port and tonic has a refreshing biter-sweet twist akin to a low-alcohol Negroni.

The 15 wines I have selected, are some of my highlights from a year of Port tasting (and drinking) – through spring, summer, autumn and winter alike.

Value

You don’t need to spend a fortune to taste good Port. The wines here range in price from a modest £12 bottle to a lavish £3,900, for a bottle of wine dating from the late 19th century. There is real value to be had in the middle-ranking wines (£15-£35 a bottle): LBVs, crusted and single quinta vintage Ports.

From tasting these wines year after year at the Decanter World Wine Awards, I can assure you that their quality has never been better.

All but one of the wines below are perfect for drinking now, however for anyone with the future to consider (a godchild or grandchild, perhaps), I have included a wine from 2019 – declared as a vintage earlier this year by some shippers (a full write-up of these wines will appear on Decanter Premium).

I thoroughly recommend you dip into all but one of these Ports over Christmas, keeping one or two of the wines back for a very happy New Year in 2022.

Mayson’s sumptuous selection: 15 seasonal Ports to try

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Albino Jorge Sousa, owner of Port estate Quinta da Boeira, said his proposal for a new classification called ‘Full Body-Young Harvest’ Ports would inject cashflow earlier for Port producers.

Jorge Sousa urged the Port sector to ‘wake up’ to meet what he said was growing demand for younger Ports from wine buyers and importers over the past two years.

His proposal comes amid wider efforts to help reinvigorate the Port category.

This year, Portugal’s Port and Douro Wine Institute, the IVDP, approved Port Tonic drinks in cans and also the new classifications – ‘Very, very old Port’, ‘50 year Tawny Port’ and ‘50 year White Port’ – reflecting its willingness to adopt changes to the category.

The IVDP told Decanter that it was analysing details of Jorge Sousa’s proposal, which it received just over a week ago.

At harvest, Ports are capable of showing aromas and flavours of forest fruits and dark chocolate. There have also been suggestions that some Ports are now easier to drink when young than in the past.

‘The consensus is that Ports are now more approachable when young,’ said Rob Symington, director of Symington Family Estates.

He attributed the changing profile of Port at harvest to quality control throughout the Port making process, from vineyard maturation studies to bunch selection at the winery door, as well as fermentation techniques and control – and ‘possibly’ more refined grape spirit than was used prior to the 1980s.

‘We would certainly not rule out using this new classification if it wins approval,’ Symington said.

However, Adrian Bridge, CEO of Port producer the Fladgate Partnership, said he feared the new proposal would ‘damage’ sales of Vintage and LBV Ports.

Bridge described the classification proposal as ‘Port Nouveau’.

But Jorge Sousa said only the best grapes usually selected for Vintage and LBV Ports would be used in the new class of ‘Full Body- Young Harvest’ Ports.

He also said producers were now better able to assess vintage quality at harvest.

‘We select vineyard plots and the best quality grapes, and we spend more time during fermentation extracting the colour from the skin of the grapes,’ he said.

‘These styles of wines are more expensive to make, with much more work at the vineyards and at the winery,’ he added.

Jorge Sousa dismissed Port industry concerns that more ageing was required for Ports to enable the brandy used for their fortification to ‘marry’ or integrate with base wines and to ensure stabilisation. ‘After three months, our young Ports are ready,’ he said.

Under the proposal, ‘Full Body-Young Harvest’ Ports could be aged in chestnut, stainless steel or wooden vats, prior to their release in December.

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One of Portugal’s best-kept secrets, white Ports are fortified wines made from white grapes, such as Viosinho, Malvasia Fina, Códega and Rabigato.

‘Most are bottled young but some whites are capable of wood age and may now be bottled with the same age indications as tawny Ports or as a colheita,’ said Richard Mayson, in his guide to Port styles.

With a lighter style than red Ports, plus flavours of citrus fruit and peel, stone fruit and nuts, they make a refreshing option for summer drinking – particularly with tonic.

How to make a white Port and tonic

Although having a similar sweetness level to gin, a white Port and tonic – also called a Portonic or Porto Tonico – is a lower-alcohol option to your usual G&T. Most white Ports clock in at around 20% abv instead of gin’s 40% abv.

To mix up your own at home, fill a highball glass or wine glass with ice. Add 50ml of white Port, top up with 100ml of a quality tonic water and stir gently to mix. Garnish with a slice of orange or lemon.

If you’d prefer an easy life, several Port houses have recently launched ready-to-drink versions in cans. First came Taylor’s Chip Dry & Tonic (£2-£2.95, EW Wines, Harvey Nichols, Portugal Vineyards, The Champagne Company; Alc 5.5%) a crisp, dry and refreshing aperitif that’s lovely with salted almonds.

Other options include Offley Clink Portonic, Cockburn’s Portonic and Croft Pink & Tonic, made with rosé Port.

Clement Robert MS recommends fortified wines in wine cocktails because ‘they are lighter than liqueurs and spirits but they have the necessary strength to give the whole drink a delicious lift.’

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‘I’m very ambitious with these red wines from the Douro,’ says Christian Seely, managing director of Quinta do Noval. ‘I believe that high quality reds and whites can give a new lease of life to the Douro and deliver to drinkers some really thrilling wines.’

Speaking at a tasting of the latest vintages of the quinta’s still wines, it’s clear that Seely has a vision for both the winery and the future of this region of Portugal – best known for its fortified wines – in the face of climate change and global warming.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for new release Quinta do Noval wines

Established in 1715, Quinta do Noval is famous for its vintage Ports – particularly its 1.6ha of ungrafted vines used to produce icon wine Nacional. It began making still wines in 2004.

Seely took charge of the estate when it was bought by AXA Millésimes in 1993. Since then much of the vineyard has been replanted, first under the supervision of technical director António Agrellos and since his retirement in 2017, under his nephew Carlos Agrellos.

In 2019 Quinta do Noval purchased the neighbouring Quinta do Passadouro estate, which has two main vineyard parcels in the Pinhão Valley and the Roncão Valley, totalling 36ha. The acquisition increased Noval’s total vineyard holdings in the Douro to 181ha.

Grape varieties

As well as plantings of traditional Douro varieties Touriga Franca, Tinta Cão and Tinta Roriz, Noval has focused on increasing its number of Touriga Nacional vines. Indeed Noval’s first single-varietal still wine was made by accident from overlooked barrels of Touriga Nacional in 2004.

‘Touriga Nacional has naturally low yields. I think of it as a delicate, floral, aromatic varietal and you have to vinify it accordingly to achieve that,’ says Seely. ‘It’s an important element in our vintage Ports. It seems to respond well to intense heat – you can make very interesting wines in hot years.’

The winery has also introduced French grapes to its vineyards. Alongside Touriga Nacional, its top range of still wines includes a Syrah and Petit Verdot. ‘We planted Syrah in 2000, it adapts very well to the Douro,’ notes Seely, who had access to cuttings – and considerable expertise – of these French varieties from AXA Millésimes stablemate Château Pichon Baron in Bordeaux and former stablemate Domaine Mas Belles Eaux in the Languedoc.

The tasting

Alongside these single varietal wines Noval makes its flagship Reserva. It also produces two other labels – Maria Mansa and Cedro do Noval, with a red and white of each – bringing its total range of Douro table wines to eight.

The new release tasting began with Cedro do Noval Branco 2020, the label named after the large cedar tree that grows on the terrace of the quinta. It’s a well-priced blend of 65% Viosinho and 35% Gouveio; the white varieties planted in a 6ha vineyard that used to be an olive grove. ‘If you want to make white wines in the Douro you have to plant your own vines,’ notes Seely.

‘I take white wines from the Douro very seriously,’ he continues. ‘The quality potential of these whites is almost limitless. Part of the thrill of these wines is their personality – they have individuality.’

That’s true of Cedro do Noval Tinto, a characterful red blend that varies from vintage to vintage. The 2017, from a hot, dry year comprised 55% Touriga Nacional, 25% Syrah, 15% Touriga Francesca and 5% Tinta Cão. While 2018, from a more temperate vintage, included less Touriga Nacional (50%) and more Touriga Francesca (20%).

The inclusion of Syrah here is indicative of the French sensibility that runs through the rest of Noval’s red wines, which are all aged in French oak.

‘Red wine is now a significant proportion of our production at Noval,’ explains Seely. ‘We don’t decide at the start of the year which grapes will be which. From the beginning of August we taste and make decisions about Port or red wine.’

Built to last

The quinta’s flagship Reserva is also a blend. While the 2017 combines 55% Touriga Nacional and 20% Touriga Francesca, the 2018 vintage includes 15% of old field-blend vines. Attention to detail is shown in fine-tuning of the oak regime: 12 months in 225-litre French oak, with 35% new for the 2017 and 50% new for the 2018.

Seely is confident that these Reservas have considerable ageing potential for the future. ‘Typically to show you have a great terroir, you need to prove the wines can age. But the reality of the market is that people are buying these wines young,’ he says.

‘I believe the Reserva 2017 and 2018 have maybe 10, 15, 20 years of ageing ahead of them,’ he adds. ‘Only since 2012 have we been making wines that will really age. We don’t have a back library of vintages to show the ageing potential yet – but we will.’

Quinta do Noval wines: new releases

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Quinta do Noval declares 2019 Port vintage

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Port vintage guide

Quinta do Noval said it had no hesitation in declaring the 2019 vintage of its highly prized Nacional Port. 

‘It was not a difficult decision to declare the Quinta do Noval 2019 Nacional, which from our very first tastings after the harvest revealed a grandeur and depth worthy of the Nacional name,’ said the group’s MD, Christian Seely. 

Produced from a small parcel of ungrafted vines at the heart of the Noval vineyard, only 200 to 250 cases of Nacional are generally made in any declared vintage. 

Quinta do Noval has also this week declared its namesake 2019 vintage Port and Quinta do Passadouro 2019 – the first vintage produced from the estate acquired by the group in that same year. 

‘I am thrilled by the quality of our first vintage from Passadouro, which shows great personality and clear terroir distinction, which I feel fully justifies our decision to acquire this vineyard,’ said Seely. 

Of the Quinta do Noval 2019, the group said the wine was drawn from 13 different vineyard parcels across its 145-hectare estate. The group has made 2,780 cases, representing around 14% of total production.

It remains to be seen how many Port houses will follow Noval’s lead with the 2019 vintage. Declarations traditionally take place on or around 23 April – St George’s day in England – and recent years have seen a lot of activity thanks to the well-regarded 2016, 2017 and 2018 vintages.

Symington Family Estates said last week that it was declaring 2019 vintage Ports from six different quintas, or estates.

Two of these will be released en primeur, the group said, naming them as Quinta do Vesúvio and Dow’s Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira. 

The other four 2019 vintage Ports will be aged in Symington cellars prior to release. They are:

• Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos;
• Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim;
• Warre’s Quinta da Cavadinha;
• Cockburn’s Quinta dos Canais.  

Charles Symington, fourth-generation head winemaker, said, ‘When reviewing the top wines from 2019, we felt that the best expression of our grape varieties came from our six principal quintas.

‘These estate wines are always the starting point from which we judge the year’s vintage Port potential and, from there, decide what to bottle. 

‘In 2019, the various plots of vineyards within each of these estates delivered small volumes of wine with fantastic depth and complexity.’

He added, ‘We believe these wines could not have been enhanced by blending across each of our port houses’ top quintas to produce a ‘classic’ vintage Port. Instead, we decided to blend the best performing components within each of our estates and bottle six Quinta Vintage Ports.’

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Full Port 2018 vintage guide and what to buy

Vintage Port may be king, but colheita Ports [single-vintage aged tawnies] are popular by election,’ says Dirk Niepoort who, by a long chalk, holds the world record for the most expensive Port sold at auction.

In 2019, a bespoke Lalique decanter of Niepoort 1863 fetched more than £100,000 at a Sotheby’s sale in Hong Kong.

Scroll down for Sarah Ahmed’s 18 favourite Tawny Ports

With luxury packaging and positioning, the rise of rare aged colheitas this last decade has added considerable lustre to the tawny Port category – and broadened the scope for anniversary gifting beyond vintage Port. During this period, demand for non-vintage tawnies has surged too.

Thankfully, with an extensive range of styles (and small-format bottlings) available, you need not be as rich as Croesus to enjoy benchmark tawny Port and will find it a versatile companion. An excellent aperitif or digestif, it also excels with cheese and classic Christmas puddings or chocolate, nut and caramel-based desserts.

Maturing tawny Port in seasoned small casks or vats differentiates it from ruby Ports (including vintage Port), which mature in the bottle. Ready to drink on release and without decanting, tawny Port is best served (and stored) lightly chilled, between 12°C-16°C.

Russet-coloured basic tawnies are wood-aged for about three years, and the more concentrated tawny reserve Ports for about seven. These styles typically retain primary plum and berry flavours, and once opened they can keep for a week or two.

‘You need to have enormous quality and structure to age in barrels,’ says Charles Symington (Graham’s), and – with prolonged wood maturation – higher-tier tawny Ports are a significant step up. They account for the alluring hue behind the name and combination of moreish approachability with tertiary complexity – citrus peel, dried fruit, caramel and ethereal, nutty, spicy wood notes. Having already undergone lengthy (controlled) oxidation, colheitas and tawny Ports ‘with an indication of age’ can last up to three months once broached.

Colheitas (sometimes labelled Single Harvest) must spend at least seven years in wood. Often aged for much longer, they can be labelled Very Old after 40 years in cask.

Tawny Ports with ‘an indication of age’ must reflect organoleptic qualities which correspond to the indicated age (10, 20, 30 or 40 years old). With no average age requirement, producers have considerable latitude when blending – especially those with extensive back-catalogues. A tiny component from precious barrels of inter-generational Ports – 80- or perhaps 100-year-old – brings depth, intensity and woody timbre. They sometimes also add volatile acidity: ‘Useful lift and zip,’ according to Ana Rosas, Ramos Pinto’s master blender.

This blending latitude explains the breadth of style within each bracket of tawny Ports with ‘an indication of age’ – from elegant to luscious, delicate to vigorous. For Kopke’s Port winemaker, Carlos Alves, the size and type of wood also ‘really gives profile to the house’.

Sarah Ahmed picks her favourite Tawny Ports

See also

Port 2018: Vintage guide and what to buy

Rare Museum Wines from Portuguese Icons

The fortified wine crossword

The buses in a West Yorkshire town used to be referred to as ‘grapes’: they were red, you waited for ages and then they came along in a bunch. There is something of the same to be said about Port vintages these days, with the last four years declared in a row.

Scroll down to see Richard Mayson’s top Vintage Port 2018 tasting notes and scores

It used to be a rule of thumb that declared vintages would number about three a decade; 1960, 1963, and 1966 being a case in point. Then there could be long gaps like that between 1985 and 1991/2.

But in recent years Port drinkers have been faced with an embarras de richesse with declarations taking place in 2015, 2016 and 2017 followed by yet another successful year in 2018.

Taylor’s who declared outright in 2016 and 2017, declared again in 2018; the first time in history that they have made three classic vintage declarations in a row.

Adrian Bridge, managing director of the Fladgate Partnership justifies this, saying: ‘Our principle is that we declare a Classic Vintage when the quality is there. This is dictated by the year, not by any other consideration. In 2018, overall conditions were excellent but in the Douro Superior they were exceptional’.

Luís Sottomayor, responsible for Ferreira, Offley and Sandeman is even more fulsome. ‘2018 is one of the best, not the best vintage I have witnessed. The special conditions experienced during the 2018 harvest came together to produce wines that combine extraordinary elegance with an unusual structure…’

Although 2018 has proved to be a good harvest across the board, not everyone is quite so effusive. Speaking for Cockburn, Dow, Graham and Warre, Harry Symington comments that they had ‘small quantities of excellent wine, but this was not consistent throughout the region, so we decided against a full declaration’.

Cockburn’s had already declared an unprecedented three years in a row with 2015, 2016 and 2017 and all the Symington Port houses declared Single Quinta Vintage Ports (SQVPs) in 2018.

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Growing conditions

From the grower’s point of view 2018 was certainly a roller coaster of a year. Ana Rosas of Ramos Pinto says: ‘It was one of the most challenging years for viticulture, however the wines produced are very pure with exceptional fruit.’

Dirk Niepoort has opted not to declare any 2018 adding: ‘Since we picked the grapes quite early, as usual, in 2018, we think that the 2018s don’t have the concentration, richness – and particularly not the complexity – for us to declare. It seems that 2018 might be “great” when picked late…’

The year was preceded by 22 months of drought, interrupted by a wet spring then followed by a summer heat wave, when temperatures rose to 45℃ in parts of the Douro Superior.

It was the groundwater that saved the year and the late-ripening Touriga Franca grape gave the wines acidity, lending them freshness and definition.

It is interesting to observe how many vintage Ports are now made up from a fairly precise varietal mix rather than from the interplanted field blend of old vines that has historically been at the core of the finest wines. There is no rule on when a vine becomes ‘old’ but it is worth remembering that some of the early varietal vineyards in the Douro are now between 30 and 40 years of age.

The vintage Port market

Due to the pandemic, the market for vintage Port has been rather skewed this year. A few wines were offered en primeur in the early summer of 2020, including Quinta do Noval, Quinta do Vesúvio and Dow’s Senhora da Ribeira.

The other wines from the Symingtons have been kept back for later release. Taylor’s will only be released for sale early in 2021. Opening prices for the top wines were around £280/six bottles in bond but, as this is not a fully declared year, expect some well-priced SQVPs for drinking over the medium- to long-term.

The wines below were tasted over the summer of 2020. They form an impressive line-up, the best characterised by ripeness, freshness and thereby wonderful balance. One or two show the heat of the vintage.

I will give the last word on 2018 to Adrian Bridge: ‘We have to follow the wine, not the economy… We want to make these wines when they come along and we don’t know when the next one is coming along.’ Just like those buses…

Port 2018: top recommendations

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Symington Family Estates, owner of Warre’s, Dow’s and Graham’s, announced the death of James Symington this week.

He was part of the third generation of the Symington family to make Port and was a leading figure in Portugal’s famous Douro Valley for more than 40 years, the family-owned group said in a tribute.

From overseeing the making of legendary vintages like 1966 and 1970 to expanding the reach of Port overseas – especially in the US – James Symington is credited with helping the region recover from a precarious financial position following the Second World War.

Born in 1934, Symington moved to Canada with his mother and siblings for two years during World War Two, but the family returned to Portugal in 1943.

Having been educated in Lisbon and at Ampleforth school in Yorkshire, England, Symington was unable to take up a place at the University of Oxford in 1952 due to ‘financial limitations’ amid a difficult era for Port producers.

He joined the British Army in 1954 and served as second lieutenant in the King’s African Rifles in Kenya, where he became fluent in Swahili.

However, in 1960, he married his wife, Penny, and joined the family firm, initially working as a taster and blender.

He would be responsible for Dow’s and Warre’s 1966 and 1970, two top Port vintages of the 20^th century, as well as the lauded 1970 vintage Port at Graham’s, the historic producer house acquired by the Symington family that year.

After 1973, he switched to the commercial side of the business and to finding new markets, a move that notably led to the creation of distribution firm Premium Port Wines in San Francisco, US, in 1985.

‘James, together with his cousins Michael and Ian, formed a strong partnership that steered the family business through several turbulent decades, when many of the historic family Port companies were sold or simply closed,’ Symington Family Estates said.

In 1987, Symington and his wife, Penny, bought the semi-abandoned Quinta do Vila Velha and renovated it into a 145-hectare (ha) property with 55ha of vineyards, the group said.

It added that James Symington’s friendship with other leading wine world figures, such as Miguel Torres, Piero Antinori and Robert Drouhin, was instrumental the firm becoming a founding member of Premium Familiae Vini group of prestigious, family-owned wine producers in 1992.

‘James and Penny had a son, Rupert, and two daughters, Clare and Miranda, and six grandchildren,’ said the group.

Rupert is currently CEO of Symington Family Estates, while Rupert’s son, Hugh, has been working at Premium Port Wines since 2018. ‘Clare also works in the family business and is based in the UK,’ the group said.

See also: 

The Decanter interview: Paul Symington (2020)

Top Ports that are drinking well today (2019)

Being asked to list my top 10 single quinta Ports is nearly as daunting as the prospect of having to choose my favourite tracks for Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. With all the dramatic twists and turns of the Douro river and its tributaries, there are so many captivating properties: some prominent, others hidden. Some are tiny holdings (either subsistence- or hobby-farmed), others are more stately, and none more so than Quinta do Vesúvio in the Douro Superior that covers over 300ha.

The focus for this article is single quinta vintage Port (SQVP), but if the growing category of unfortified Douro wines were brought into the equation, I would have picked a different top 10 with some equally enchanting estates, such as Quinta do Vallado, Quinta do Crasto, Quinta do Vale Meão and Ferreira’s Quinta da Leda – all certain to be on my shortlist in that case.

Some of the properties below (such as Quinta do Noval, Quinta de la Rosa and Quinta do Vesúvio) have become shippers in their own right, producing a range of wines (both Port and Douro) as well as a Single Quinta Vintage Port nearly every year. Others are an important part of larger shippers such as Graham’s, Sandeman or Taylor’s, and in declared years their output contributes to their house vintage Port blends.

It goes almost without saying that all of these vineyards are registered Grade ‘A’ in the official classification system that determines how much Port each property can make in any one year.

At the time of writing, the Douro has just experienced one of its hottest years on record. After a succession of hot years (and looming climate change), it remains to be seen whether altitude may become an advantage in years to come (higher elevations being an adverse factor in the present classification system).

The quintas below are ordered geographically, starting in the heart of the Douro in the Cima Corgo near Pinhão and moving back upstream to the Douro Superior. And if asked, as they do at the end of Desert Island Discs, to pick just one quinta… Well, that would be an impossibility. However, I would happily take any or all of these wines to my desert island, along with fond recollections of time spent in the Douro!

Sandeman, Quinta do Seixo

Seixo occupies a prominent position overlooking the confluence of the river Torto with the Douro. I came to know this quinta rather well in the summer of 1982 when it was the basis for my undergraduate dissertation on vineyard microclimate. At the time it belonged to Ferreira, a pioneer of vertical planting (perpendicular up the face of the slope, known locally as vinha ao alto), which is favoured here on all but the very steepest slopes.

Bought as a Ferreira property, Seixo has now been rebranded as Sandeman by owners Sogrape. The house and adega (described by Henry Vizetelly in the 1870s as ‘commodious and well-arranged’ with ‘an air of pretension about it’) have been restored to make a stunning visitor centre. With commanding views over the Douro and Torto valleys, there is no more inspiring place to sip a glass of Sandeman’s scintillating tawny Port.

Seixo is now the basis for Sandeman’s much-improved vintage Ports (the 2018 looks really very promising), but it has only been bottled quite rarely as a single quinta vintage.

Ramos Pinto, Quinta do Bom Retiro

Torto means ‘twisted’: an apt name for this narrow, deeply incised tributary on the south side of the Douro. There are no fewer than three properties called Retiro (‘retreat’), one of which belongs to Warre’s, one to Krohn and this, the largest and most famous, belonging to Ramos Pinto. The company developed Bom Retiro in the early 20th century on profits generated by the sale of Port to Brazil. As a result, it boasts the earliest swimming pool in the Douro (cleverly disguised as an ornamental pond) and a level promenade shaded by palm trees designed for a gentle saunter after lunch or dinner. (This is, without doubt, a ‘good retreat’, as the name translates.)

But time hasn’t stood still here. From the 1970s onwards, Bom Retiro has been a crucible of experimentation, both in the vineyard and in the winery, under the aegis of João Nicolau de Almeida. Some of the first vineyard terraces (patamares) intended for mechanisation were built here.

Winemaking is now the responsibility of João’s younger cousin Ana Rosas, which keeps things in the family (although Ramos Pinto belongs to Champagne house Louis Roederer). Bom Retiro forms an important component in Ramos Pinto’s vintage Port (magnificent in recent years, including the 1994, 2000 and 2011) and is bottled as single quinta vintage in other good years, most recently 2018. However, I could not list Bom Retiro without including its utterly sublime single quinta tawny.

Quinta de la Rosa

There really can be no finer present than Quinta de la Rosa, which was given to Claire Feuerheerd for her christening in 1906. The Feuerheerds (then important wine shippers in their own right) called the property La Rosa after their brand of Sherry, hence the Spanish- sounding name. Although the Port firm was sold off in the 1930s, La Rosa still belongs to the same family. Having sold wine to a number of leading shippers in the interim, it was Tim and Sophia Bergqvist (Claire Feuerheerd’s son and granddaughter) who bravely decided to strike out on their own in the late 1980s.

The predominantly south-facing vineyards at La Rosa rise from the river at about 90m-400m above sea level, making for a wide range of meso- and microclimates. Built into the terraces just above the river and the railway line, the rather topsy-turvy house at La Rosa is one of the most appealing in the Douro. The Bergqvists have developed a small hotel, guest houses and restaurant (Cozinha da Clara) at La Rosa, making the most of this beautiful family property. After nearly four decades at the helm, Tim Bergqvist died in the summer of 2018. The wine I’ve selected, from his last vintage, is a fitting tribute.

Quinta do Noval

The narrow mouth of the river Pinhão belies the huge valley upstream, source of some of the finest vintage Ports. Noval’s vineyards have always been impeccably maintained and the whitewashed steps connecting one walled terrace to another are visible for miles around.

Since it was bought by AXA Millésimes in 1993, much of the vineyard has been replanted, with a big increase in the amount of Touriga Nacional vines. The estate now extends to 143ha, with the famous ungrafted ‘Nacional’ vineyard covering just 2ha at the heart of the property. Although Noval is the house name that appears on wines coming from outside the quinta, the name ‘Quinta do Noval’ is reserved for late bottled vintage, colheita and vintage Ports, all of which originate from the property itself.

Since 2011, Noval has declared a small quantity of vintage Port every year, most recently in 2018 amounting to 1,600 cases (or 7% of the estate’s total production).

I could have chosen any of those wines, but the wine I have selected here is a 2005, not a vintage but a colheita (dated, aged tawny), bottled after 14 years of nurturing in wood in a temperature-controlled wine lodge.

Dow’s, Quinta do Bomfim

The locality was known originally as Vale Bem Feito (‘well-made valley’) but the Quinta do Bomfim (‘good end’) does not seem to have had much of a history until it was bought by George Acheson Warre for Dow’s in 1896. Warre built a modest but comfortable residence at Bomfim, inspired by the tea- planters’ houses in Ceylon, and the shady verandah with its view over the river is one my favourite places to enjoy a glass of chilled 20-year-old tawny.

In 2015, the Symington family opened an excellent visitor centre at the entrance to Quinta do Bomfim, which is a short walk along the main street from the railway station at Pinhão. Wine from Bomfim continues to form the backbone of Dow’s solid and long-lived vintage Ports, which are deliberately made in a drier style. This works especially well in hot, ripe years such as 2009, a year fully declared by some other shippers.

Croft, Quinta da Roêda

The vineyard at Roêda interlocks with that at Dow’s Bomfim (above) and enjoys a similar south-facing aspect and exposure, though the wines the two produce are very different in style. The Roêda property belonged to the Fladgates (of Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman fame) until it was acquired by Croft in 1889. A colonial-style house similar to that at Bomfim was built in the 1920s.

Roêda went full circle in 2001 when Croft was bought by Taylor’s, and Quinta da Roêda is now a key property in the Fladgate portfolio. The winery serves as the principal vinification centre for Croft and has benefited from significant investment in recent years, not least the restoration of the lagares abandoned under the old regime in the 1960s.

Recent Croft vintages have regained their stature: 1955, 1963 and 1966 were all magnificent wines and 2017 seems to be a worthy successor, made in the juicy, plump style that seems to be a hallmark of Croft – and of Roêda. The visitor centre at Quinta da Roêda is easy to access from Pinhão and offers vineyard tours, tastings and an opportunity to see grapes being foot-trodden during vintage time – as long as social distancing measures are not in force!

Churchill’s, Quinta da Gricha

Facing northwest and situated at 150m-400m above sea level, Quinta da Gricha has a magnificent exposure with a view over the river to match. It is named after a spring that rises on the hillside and, through a series of granite-lined watercourses, continues to supply water to the property. The vineyard was laid out in the 1840s and the adega built a decade later, with impressive granite lagares decorated by carved finials.

Port shippers Churchill’s was established by Johnny Graham in 1981, and Gricha was the first property the company acquired. Gricha now produces Douro wine under the Churchill’s label as well as being the basis for Churchill’s vintage Port. The Single Quinta Vintage Port produced in 2018 is an excellent one.

Graham’s, Quinta dos Malvedos

Malvedos is synonymous with Graham’s, having been a key part of its renowned vintage Ports for more than a century. The quinta briefly parted company in the lean years of the early 1970s but was repurchased by the Symington family in 1982. They replanted the vineyards and built a new winery, constructed sympathetically from local schist. Stainless steel robotic lagares tread the grapes, one of the old granite lagares having been retained.

Covering nearly 100ha, the property is predominantly south-facing and rises from the river up to 400m altitude. A few north-facing terraces, planted predominantly with Touriga Nacional vines, are now producing a super- premium vintage Port for Graham’s known as The Stone Terraces.

Malvedos produces opulent, balanced, lasting wines that always stand the test of time, with single quinta wines from the late 1950s and early ’60s still drinking well.

Taylor’s, Quinta de Vargellas

The late satirist Willie Rushton drew a cartoon of Quinta de Vargellas which he depicted as the ‘last outpost of the British Empire’. Vargellas even has its own railway station (the platform imagined by Rushton as being populated by bowler-hatted London City commuters), which gives this remote property a sense of self-sufficiency.

Vargellas was established in the early 1800s, and by the 1830s had gained a reputation for the quality of its wines. For much of the 19th century, a significant part of the property belonged to the Ferreira family until three quintas bearing the name of Vargellas were merged into one by Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman between 1893 and 1896. Curving with the river, Vargellas forms an extremely impressive property and, although not the largest of its vineyards, is treated by the Fladgate Partnership as its flagship estate.

Vargellas produces strong, dark wines with a pronounced scented character often characterised as ‘violety’. Taylor’s launched its first SQVP in 1958. In declared years, Port from Vargellas forms a major part of Taylor’s vintage blend along with powerful wines from the company’s other estates, Quinta de Terra Feita and Quinta do Junco, in the Pinhão valley. The so-called ‘chalet’ at Vargellas has the feeling of a small, comfortable English country house.

Quinta do Vesúvio

Undeniably the most impressive quinta in the Douro, Vesúvio boasts the largest house, some of the biggest lagares and (like Lisbon, Rome, San Francisco and Sheffield) the estate covers seven hills. It was created in the early 19th century by António Bernardo Ferreira and remained with the Ferreira family until it was acquired by the Symingtons in 1989.

Predominantly north-facing (which is a considerable asset in hot years), the entire property covers an area of 32ha, of which more than one-third is now under vine. There are eight traditional lagares (equipped with their own pissoirs, should anyone be caught short while treading) with a capacity of 25 pipes each. These have been thoroughly revamped and equipped with temperature control and there is an air-conditioned lodge for ageing the wines. Since 1989, a Vesúvio vintage has been bottled nearly every year – 1993 and 2002 are the only exceptions to date.

Richard Mayson’s Top 10 Single Quinta Ports tasted

Taylor’s secured a remarkable collection of old, cask-aged Ports when it purchased Wiese & Krohn in 2013. A year later Taylor’s launched its first Single Harvest Port (an aged tawny Port, also known as a colheita) from the 1964 vintage. The newly released 1970 is the seventh in the series of this limited edition of 50-year-old wines.

The year 1970 happened to be an excellent and widely declared Port vintage producing classic, tight-knit wines, the best of which still have a long future ahead. Vintage Ports are bottled after around two years, but for colheitas, prolonged ageing in pipes (casks of around 620 litres) gives a very different outcome from bottle age.

Keeping Port in wood for this long is an extraordinary feat involving continual care and attention to ensure the wine does not expend itself. Cool cellars are essential: this Single Harvest 1970 was aged in the Port lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia. (In contrast, wines aged in the Douro Valley often take an overtly stewed, volatile character known as ‘Douro bake’.)

After nearly half a century in wood, the wine takes on a wonderfully lifted, liquorous quality, the natural sweetness intensified by the steady evaporation rate of 1-2% a year. The key to maintaining the quality of the wine is to keep topping up the cask with more of the same wine to prevent the oxidation from becoming excessive.

The result is a rich, heady wine with tawny qualities, the tannins having softened and fallen away. Don’t expect to find primary fruit, but instead all sorts of ethereal complexities that have gathered with age.

One of the great beauties of these wines is that you don’t have to consume the bottle at a single sitting. The fact that it has aged for so long in the presence of air means that it is resistant to oxidation when ullage occurs after pouring. Kept cool, a wine like this may be sampled at intervals over a few weeks without its very many charms diminishing greatly.

Tasting Taylor’s Single Harvest 1970

See also:

Decanter’s guide to anniversary wines 2020

Port 2018 declared for rare third consecutive year

The 2018 Port vintage is being widely heralded, as the leading Port houses start to make their annual declarations. Taylor’s Port has taken the decision to declare a classic vintage for a highly unusual third consecutive year, following its declaration of the 2016 and 2017 vintages.

‘Although a Classic declaration normally only happens about three times a decade, the exceptional run of years has meant that Taylor’s is able to make a third in a row,’ said Taylor’s managing director Adrian Bridge.

‘This is very unusual but our principle is that we only declare a Classic Vintage when the quality is there and this is dictated by the year, not by any other consideration.’ Bridge added that in light of the current global situation the house would bottle in July as usual, but not offer the wines for sale until early 2021.

Fonseca and Croft, which like Taylor’s are owned by The Fladgate Partnership, will also be releasing 2018 bottlings. Commenting on the general quality of the vintage, head winemaker David Guimaraens said: ‘The 2018 harvest has produced outstanding vintage Ports, although the year was not without its challenges. These included the severe hailstorm which devastated many Pinhão Valley vineyards on 28 May.’ He noted that 2018 Ports have ‘the highest colour intensity of recent vintages, always a sign of good extraction and longevity’.

Guimaraens highlighted ‘exceptional’ growing conditions in the Douro Superior in particular. ‘The Douro Superior enjoyed the combination of abundant ground water and hot summer weather which often produces great vintage Port. It has given us the excellent phenolic maturity typical of a hot ripening season but the fine multi-layered fruit, fresh acidity we normally see in cooler years.’

Fonseca will release a 2018 Guimaraens vintage Port; the first bottling under the Guimaraens label since 2015. ‘The Guimaraens concept is unique; a wine with the same make up and character as the classic Fonseca Vintages but made in a more approachable, early-drinking style,’ explained Bridge.

Single-quinta 2018 Ports

Croft will be releasing a single-quinta 2018 vintage from its Quinta da Roêda estate. It joins releases from six of the principal quintas owned by Symington Family Estates. Two of the company’s Douro Superior estates – Quinta do Vesuvio and Dow’s Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira – will be released en primeur this year.

Symington, like Taylor, made its first back-to-back general declaration last year. Charles Symington, fourth generation winemaker, explained that for 2018 the decision was taken to focus instead on single estates, which he described as ‘the ultimate expression of Douro terroir’.

As well as the 965 cases of Quinta do Vesuvio and 510 cases of Dow’s Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira released this year, Symington has selected four other 2018 vintage Ports – Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos, Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim, Warre’s Quinta da Cavadinha and Cockburn’s Quinta dos Canais – which will age in the company’s cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia for future release.

Available now, in limited quantities, Ramos Pinto has also declared its Quinta do Bom Retiro 2018 vintage Port. Jorge Rosas, CEO of Ramos Pinto, described the 2018 as ‘the definition of elegance’.

Quinta do Noval

Quinta do Noval has also been declared, with 1,600 cases set for release. Managing director Christian Seely commented: ‘It will perhaps come as no surprise that we are declaring the Quinta do Noval 2018 Vintage Port. Like 2017, 2018 was a year of low yields, but for different reasons. 2017 was a year of extreme drought, while 2018 was marked in the first part of the year by heavy rainfall. This meant that potential yields were naturally much reduced by the difficulties of the flowering period. Subsequently however, a long hot dry summer ensued.’

Seely added that this ‘excellent ripening period’ produced a ‘magnificently ripe, profound and expressive’ Quinta do Noval 2018 blend, derived from a strict selection of the quinta’s top lots.

‘Both Touriga Nacional and Touriga Francesa flourished in 2018, in particular the Francesa which benefited from the ideal ripening conditions, and this vintage Port blend is dominated by these two varietals,’ he noted.

Earlier declarations

These latest announcements follow on from news earlier in April, when Sogrape announced the declaration for its estates Sandeman, Offley and Ferreira. ‘2018 is one of the best, if not the best, vintage years I have witnessed,’ stated Sogrape’s winemaker Luís Sottomayor.

‘The special conditions experienced during the 2018 harvest came together to produce wines that combine extraordinary elegance with an unusual structure, thus achieving excellent complexity and balance, with great ageing potential,’ he added.

Vintage 2017 will go down in history for the Symington family. It made its first ever ‘back-to-back’ general Vintage Port declaration since Andrew James Symington arrived in Porto in 1882 and, perhaps just as momentously, acquired Quinta da Fonte Souto. Located in Portalegre, Alentejo’s northernmost sub-region, it is the family’s first vineyard acquisition outside their beloved Douro.

In year one, with ‘probably as close to maximum quality as possible’, according to Charles Symington, it produced Alicante Bouschet and Syrah ‘of the highest quality’. Having focused on the ‘highly regulated’ Douro since 1995, the head winemaker is enjoying working in Alentejo, describing it as, ‘more New World, with a refreshing approach to varieties’. These include Syrah, which he rates as ‘fantastic’ in this southern Portuguese region.For Charles the chief attraction was ‘a location where, with more acidity, we could make different wine styles, not necessarily the most powerful and structured, but more elegant.’ Qualities that, since I first visited Portalegre in 2009 (including Altas Quintas, as Quinta da Fonte Souto was then known), have attracted cutting-edge winemaking talent and other established players (notably Herdade do Esporão, Cartuxa and Sogrape), putting its unique terroir in the spotlight.

A breath of fresh air

Key to Portalegre’s freshness is its location on the slopes of the Serra de São Mamede. Rising to 1,025m above sea level, the mountain is the south’s highest point and, says Dominic Symington, ‘creates its own microclimate, with particularly abundant rainfall [averaging 750mm a year]’.

Located at 480-540m, Quinta da Fonte Souto experiences pronounced diurnal temperature variation (averaging 11.5ºC) during maturation. Granite soils impart freshness too. With obvious potential for whites, it makes little sense to Charles that just three out of 45ha are planted to white grapes. The Symingtons have already grafted over some Trincadeira and Cabernet Sauvignon to increase the area of white grapes by 50% and introduce Touriga Nacional.

Polished wines

If freshness is in Portalegre’s DNA, attention to detail is part of the Symington’s DNA, resulting in polished wines. Compared with those I tasted from Altas Quintas a decade ago, Quinta da Fonte Souto reds are especially much more sophisticated. Multiple selective harvests, irrigating only to avert hydric stress and sweeping clean with new fermenters and barrels has paid dividends, although I found the new oak a little overplayed in the top white.

Quinta Da Fonte Souto at a glance

Area: 207ha, of which 43ha under vine

Soils: Transitional granite to schist

Principal white grape varieties: Arinto, Verdelho

Principal red grape varieties: Trincadeira, Aragonês, Alfrocheiro, Alicante Bouschet, Syrah, Touriga Nacional, Cabernet Sauvignon 

How do they compare to other Portalegre wines? Seized upon by leading winemakers such as Rui Reguinga, Vitor Claro and Susana Esteban, small plots of Portalegre’s old field blend bush vines produce exceptionally characterful wines on an artisanal scale.

Revolving around noble varieties from this relatively large estate’s modern, block-planted, trellised vines, Quinta da Fonte Souto offers a point of difference. The wines are sleeker and more international, yet finer-framed and fresher than is common for Alentejo.

With premium but accessible price points for all bar the flagship – ‘a statement wine,’ says Dominic – they look set to win new fans for Portalegre’s elegant style.

Sarah Ahmed reviews the Quinta da Fonte Souto wines

Whether your preferred style of Port is a nutty tawny, a fruity LBV, a bargain single-quinta or a sledgehammer vintage Port, the sheer variety of fortified wines produced in the Douro region of Portugal should be celebrated.

If you’re looking for a value option, take a look at our Christmas Port recommendations below. Most of the wines in our roundup retail for less than £20/$25, although we have included a couple of slightly more expensive examples which still offer great value for money, such as Maynard’s 40-year-old Tawny Port, which can be found at Aldi for just £34.99.

With bottles from some of the region’s top names, such as Taylor’s, Graham’s, Fonseca, Warre’s and Quinta do Noval, as well as supermarket own-labels from M&S, Tesco, Booth’s, Morrisons and Lidl, we are sure you’ll find something for the table over this festive period.

See also: Cheese and Port matching guide

Value Christmas Port recommendations:

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See Richard's top six picks below, plus his detailed vintage guide back to 1960.

When it comes to vintage Port, we’ve never had it so good – an unprecedented run of fine vintages in 2017, 2016 and 2015 were all worthy of an outright declaration, with 2018 and 2019 looking promising too.

But to drink these wines now would be infanticide, so it begs the question: what Port to drink now while these wonderful recent vintages slowly mature?

Fortunately, some of the rather good years in the 2000s and 1990s are now becoming approachable. They divide between so-called ‘classic’ declarations and single-quinta vintage Ports (SQVPs). The main difference is that SQVP is generally ready to drink after 10 years rather than 20, and priced at £25-£45 a bottle, these wines are less than half the price of a bottle from a fully declared vintage.

The most recent single-quinta year that is becoming approachable is 2010. From a large crop, those estates with old vines at their core produced some lovely, balanced, fruit-driven wines that are just being released. With a backbone of fragrant Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca, Cockburn’s Quinta dos Canais looks like a good wine for the medium term.

In complete contrast, 2008 was a low-yielding year with a lot of single-quinta Ports, many yet to be released. In general, the wines are aromatic but still show restraint and are characterised by their freshness and purity of fruit backed by structured tannins. Taylor’s Quinta de Terra Feita and Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos both look very promising.

A run of three good years in the mid-2000s produced SQVPs, all of which are now fully ready to drink. 2006 and 2005 made big, ripe-flavoured wines. A few shippers, notably Niepoort, thought 2005 was good enough to declare outright. Both vintages made wines that can be enjoyed now and will last into the 2030s and beyond.

By contrast, 2004 was a near-disaster due to untimely rain, but swung to success with a fine harvest that produced balanced, well-structured wines perfect for drinking now. Warre’s Quinta da Cavadinha 2004 is well defined with plum and black cherry fruit supported by firm tannins.

See Richard Mayson’s Port vintage guide here

Raring to go

When it comes to fully declared years, 2011, 2009, 2007, 2003 and 2000 are, on the whole, not yet ready to drink. The opulent 2003s will be ready first with Cockburn’s, Croft and Ramos Pinto just on the cusp.

For Port to drink now, go back a decade to two contrasting years: 1997 and 1994. The latter year proved to be a watershed after some patchy declarations in the 1980s and early 1990s: Croft, Ramos Pinto and Taylor’s performed well in a recent comparative tasting, showing the characteristic eloquence of the 1994 vintage. The 1997s were more demure at the outset and perhaps a little more forward now. Fonseca and Taylor’s already show purity of fruit and have the structure to continue to drink well for the next 20 years or so.

Going back to the 1980s, there is a caveat emptor on some of the 1985s, though Fonseca is faultless and in my opinion the leading wine of the vintage. Dow’s, Graham’s and Warre’s all performed well in 1983, as well as three years earlier in 1980. These wines would be my selection for drinking this Christmas, unless of course you have access to the 1977s and 1970s.

From 1977, Fonseca is a tower of strength with Dow’s and Graham’s 1970 both worthy of being ranked alongside the 20th-century greats.

How to serve

All vintage Port, be it single-quinta or a classic declaration, is treated in the same way, with the minimum of intervention before bottling. All throw a crust (sediment) in bottle as they age and require decanting.

Leave the bottle upright for an hour or two then slowly pour the wine into a decanter against a good light (a candle if you want to be romantic). Nothing needs to be wasted: decant the wine before dinner and the sediment makes a good addition to a casserole or gravy.

Seasonal treat: Mayson’s top bottles of Port to drink now

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Wine Legend: Dow’s Vintage Port 1955

Bottles produced N/A

Composition Principally Quinta do Bomfim, with an important Senhora da Ribeira component and possibly a very small contribution from Quinta do Zimbro

Yield N/A

Alcohol 20%

Release price £1

Price today £360

A legend because…

There was a plethora of excellent Ports made in this vintage, but Dow’s has long stood out for its elegance as well as richness. William Warre, who sold these wines for many years, described them as ‘rather more delicate, feminine wines’ that ‘seldom let anyone down in quality’. They age well, even if in their youth they seem less structured and powerful than some other well-known Ports. They are also a touch drier than some of the more sumptuous Ports, but that doesn’t impede their ageing ability.

Looking back

Silva & Cosens, an Anglo-Portuguese shipper, bought the established Dow’s brand in 1877, and one of the shareholders was a member of the Warre family. Warre’s own Port was owned by the Symington family, who invested in Silva & Cosens, and by 1961 had become the sole owner. There were no significant changes in the wine’s style during this period.

The vintage

This was the most widely declared vintage since 1927, so consistent was the evaluation of the wines by 26 shippers. The spring months were unusually hot and led to a good flowering. The summer was slightly warmer than average, and the little rain that fell sporadically proved beneficial as it quenched the thirst of dehydrating berries. The fine weather continued into the autumn. The resulting wines were rich but so well balanced that a long life in the cellar seemed certain.

The terroir

Like all vintage Ports, the Dow’s is a blend of different grape varieties from different vineyards. However, the mainstay of the blend is fruit from the Symington family’s Quinta do Bomfim, close to Pinhão, and Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira in the isolated Douro Superior sub-region, farther upstream. The proportions of each vineyard’s contribution varied from vintage to vintage. The grape varieties were then field-blended and would have included Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela, Tinta Francisca, Tinto Cão and a small proportion of Touriga Nacional, which was then much less widely planted than it is today.

The wine

At this time virtually all of the wine would have been foot-trodden in lagares, the stone tanks traditionally used to crush the grapes and begin their fermentation. The fermentation period would have been slightly longer than for most other vintage Ports, and this accounts for the slightly drier style of Dow’s, as the yeasts would have consumed more sugar. After 18 months of storage in large wooden vats (to minimise the wood’s influence), the wine was bottled without fining or filtration.

The reaction

Michael Broadbent frequently tasted Dow’s Ports between the mid-1960s and 1998. In 1994 he noted that the 1955 had ‘a silkily tannic texture’ but in later years bottles were ‘tending to dry out although very flavoury, with a lingering finish. Vanilla and liquorice noted, then a touch of acidity creeping up.’

Richard Mayson adored the wine in 2008: ‘Still very deep in colour, only just browning on the rim; extraordinarily fresh, powerful, tight-knit bitter chocolate aromas, minty fruit; very fine and focused, dry in characteristic Dow style, remarkably fresh, ripe, minty fruit. Absolutely delicious. Just about as good as it gets.’

See more Wine Legends here