Winemaker Notes
Vintage Port needs to lie down during its years of slumber after it has been bottled. Keep it in a cool, dark, dry place, where it can rest in peace. At about 15 to 20 years old Vintage Port will start to show the characteristics of slow aging in the bottle and it will taste really exceptional. By then it will have gained silky elegance and complexity. But you can enjoy it earlier, if you prefer a more intense, fruity experience. It will go on for many years after that too.
Vintage Port should be served in generous wine glasses, not the small thimble-like glasses in which most of the aromas and flavours are lost. Fine white wine glasses would do the trick, for example, or indeed specific Port glasses from Riedel. Serve it slightly cooler than average room temperature, but not chilled. It will stay at its peak for a few days once decanted, just like any other great red wine.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This shows fantastic graphite and dark-berry character with black-stone undertones and hints of dried roses. Full-bodied and very tight and precise. Good kick in the end. Love the polished tannins, which are totally folded into the wine. Reminds me of the 1947 Cockburn. Try in 2024.
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Decanter
A Douro Superior blend of Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca supported by Sousão and Alicante Bouschet. Relatively closed and restrained on the nose but with an underlying ripeness with intense dark cassis backed by powerful yet fine-grained tannins, big and broad on the finish. This is a wine for the long haul and excellent value – Cockburn is truly back on form. Total production of 2,450 cases.
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Wine Spectator
This is quite primal, with lush plum, blackberry and açai berry reduction rolling through, pushed by warm licorice and Black Forest cake notes. A substantial bass line thumps on the finish, showing plenty of sparkly spice and incense details hitting the top range. Best from 2030 through 2050.
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Wine Enthusiast
The wine has structure, swathes of juicy fruit and acidity along with fine tannins. It is certainly balanced with deliciously luscious fruit, and a rich texture that is suggesting good aging potential. Drink from 2028.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Vintage Port, bottled in May 2018, is a blend of 62% Touriga Nacional, 21% Touriga Franca and small portions of Sousão and Alicante Bouschet. It comes in with 106 grams of residual sugar. Fairly intense and even tighter than Graham's, this might be somewhat approachable in a few years, but it really needs to open up. It will require more time than the wines like Warre's and Smith Woodhouse in the Symington stable. Beautifully wrought, this looks like an impressive Cockburn's, more balanced and fresher than the stolid and jammy 2015 yet still with fine concentration to go with the freshness.
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. To learn more, see our full Port Wine Guide
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.