Taylor’s releases £2,500 Port

A pre-phylloxera tawny port with more than 150 years of cask age has been released by Taylor’s with a price-tag of £2,500 a bottle, breaking new ground for the category.

Taylor’s Scion, which has been maturing in the Douro since 1855, was bought in cask by the company earlier this year, but would normally have been used in its 30- or 40-year-old tawny blends.

‘That seemed a shame,’ said Adrian Bridge, CEO of The Fladgate Partnership, owner of Taylor’s. ‘There is a very strong argument from a wine point of view why this should not be blended.

‘Very often these wines are so intense in their aging that they end up almost too cloying, too intense. This wine still has some nice acidity, which gives some bite to the wine and gives something that is just quite extraordinary.’

About 1,400 bottles of Scion will be released, packaged in a specially designed decanter and wooden box based on a 19th century instrument case.

Bridge said he believed there was a market for a port at such an elevated price, but confessed: ‘I have no idea of what the world response will be, absolutely no idea – because no-one’s ever done this before.’

Written by Richard Woodard