Taylor Fladgate 30 Year Old Tawny (375ML half-bottle)
- Decanter
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Robert
Parker -
Wine &
Spirits -
Wine
Spectator
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Decanter
A bright, ruddy tawny, with an olive rim. Vigorous on both the nose and palate, with a classy Cognac-like spirit character and lifted drive. Well-structured, with a walnut, green (tomato plant) and black cardamom edge to its tightly focused fruit notes of dried apricot and fig, along with hints of salted caramel. The penetrating, back-of-the-net finish is very precise, lingering and in the Taylor’s house style.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The NV 30 Year Old Tawny Port was bottled with a bar top cork in 2014. It comes in at 125.8 grams per liter of residual sugar. It isn't that I dislike the 20s or even younger Tawnies, but this shows what you get by stepping up. (Granted, the price is quite a step up, too.) This has that wonderful concentration of flavor, the molasses, the touch of treacle and the extra complexity that you don't always get with young Tawnies. Its combination of power, concentration and complexity also means that it lingers endlessly on the finish. It's one of those wines you will be able to smell on anything it touches for much of the evening. That's worth the price of admission for me. This is wonderfully constructed with that long, intensely flavorful finish. As with most such, it can hold indefinitely barring cork failure, but the bar top cork means that it is not really expected to be aged. Dig in. Make sure not to drink them too warm--60 degrees Fahrenheit or so works a lot better than 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Wine & Spirits
This wine starts with a burst of flavor, trumpeting preserved lemon, mincemeat and baking spice over a luscious, creamy texture. Then it mellows into the finish, clean and lasting, ending on the savor of roasted almonds. It would be a delicious match for sheeps milk cheeses from the mountains, whether Ossau Iraty or, within Portugal, Queijo Serra da Estrela.
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Wine Spectator
Suave and elegant, with lively acidity to the butterscotch, caramel, hazelnut and custard flavors, stretching into the plush midpalate. The long finish is spicy and fresh, showing notes of citrus rind. Drink now.
Port is a sweet, fortified wine with numerous styles: Ruby, Tawny, Vintage, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), White, Colheita, and a few unusual others. It is blended from from the most important red grapes of the Douro Valley, based primarily on Touriga Nacional with over 80 other varieties approved for use. Most Ports are best served slightly chilled at around 55-65°F.
The home of Port—perhaps the most internationally acclaimed beverage—the Douro region of Portugal is one of the world’s oldest delimited wine regions, established in 1756. The vineyards of the Douro, set on the slopes surrounding the Douro River (known as the Duero in Spain), are incredibly steep, necessitating the use of terracing and thus, manual vineyard management as well as harvesting. The Douro's best sites, rare outcroppings of Cambrian schist, are reserved for vineyards that yield high quality Port.
While more than 100 indigenous varieties are approved for wine production in the Douro, there are five primary grapes that make up most Port and the region's excellent, though less known, red table wines. Touriga Nacional is the finest of these, prized for its deep color, tannins and floral aromatics. Tinta Roriz (Spain's Tempranillo) adds bright acidity and red fruit flavors. Touriga Franca shows great persistence of fruit and Tinta Barroca helps round out the blend with its supple texture. Tinta Cão, a fine but low-yielding variety, is now rarely planted but still highly valued for its ability to produce excellent, complex wines.
White wines, generally crisp, mineral-driven blends of Arinto, Viosinho, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and an assortment of other rare but local varieties, are produced in small quantities but worth noting.
With hot summers and cool, wet winters, the Duoro has a maritime climate.