Dow's Vintage Port (375ML half-bottle) 2007
-
Spectator
Wine -
Enthusiast
Wine -
Parker
Robert -
Spirits
Wine &
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Dow’s 1997 Vintage Port pairs wonderfully with strong cheeses like creamy Blue Stilton or Aged Cheddar or paired on its own. Port is best served in classic Port wine glassware or white wine glasses. Avoid cordial or liqueur glasses as they are too small to fully appreciate the wine’s aromas.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Amazing aromas of lilac, violet, crushed blueberry and mineral that turn to black pepper and spices follow through to a full-bodied, medium-sweet palate, with a long, chewy finish. Evolves to tar and asphalt. Really held back, yet powerful grip slaps you—and makes you happy. This is mind-blowing in texture. The greatest Dow ever made. Best after 2022. 6,200 cases made.
-
Wine Enthusiast
A solidly structured wine, packed with initially sweet fruit that then becomes drier as the ripe tannins show through. All the ingredients are there, supported by a tense texture to go with the first sweetness. It’s an exciting wine, obviously very ageworthy.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Dow’s Vintage Port is one of the stars of the vintage. A glass-coating opaque purple color, it offers up an already complex bouquet of mineral, pencil lead, licorice, spice box, and assorted black fruits. On the palate it is quite massive, slightly dry in the house style, and packed with fruit. It has the structure to be one of the long distance runners of the vintage taking as much as 20 years to reach its peak and drinking well through 2050. As an aside, I was able to taste the individual components of this wine on the day prior to this tasting. The final blend is better than any of its parts.
-
Wine & Spirits
The color shows the intense concentration of this wine, its deep purple edge predicting the big bite of fruit up front. The bold berry and plum flavors are round, supple and ripe, completely filling the mouth before settling into the schist of the tannin and the char of the oak. Dow is often compressed and hard to read as a young vintage release: This inky 2007 may well make the current rating seem conservative as it expands with age. Check on it 30 years from the vintage.
Other Vintages
2017-
Suckling
James - Decanter
-
Enthusiast
Wine -
Parker
Robert -
Spectator
Wine -
Spirits
Wine &
-
Spectator
Wine - Decanter
-
Enthusiast
Wine -
Suckling
James -
Parker
Robert
-
Spectator
Wine -
Parker
Robert -
Spirits
Wine & -
Suckling
James -
Enthusiast
Wine
-
Parker
Robert -
Spectator
Wine -
Enthusiast
Wine -
Spirits
Wine &
-
Suckling
James -
Enthusiast
Wine -
Parker
Robert -
Spectator
Wine
-
Spectator
Wine -
Enthusiast
Wine -
Parker
Robert
- Decanter
-
Spectator
Wine -
Parker
Robert
-
Spectator
Wine -
Parker
Robert
-
Suckling
James
-
Spectator
Wine
-
Spectator
Wine
-
Enthusiast
Wine -
Spectator
Wine -
Parker
Robert
For over two centuries the name of DOW has been associated with the finest Port from the vineyards of the Upper Douro Valley. Throughout the 20th Century and into the 21st, the Symington family has built on the legacy of the preceding Silva and Dow families. Generations of Symington winemakers have worked at the Dow’s vineyards: Quinta do Bomfim and Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira, creating from them Dow’s superbly concentrated wines that are intense and tannic when young, maturing towards a superlative racy elegance with age and scented with violet and mint aromas. Dow’s attractive and distinctive drier finish is the recognizable hallmark of the wines from this great Port house.
The story of Dow’s is unusual amongst all the great Port houses. It began in 1798 when Bruno da Silva, a Portuguese merchant from Oporto, made a journey which was the opposite to that of the first British merchants. Bruno set up in London from where he imported wine from his native country. He married an Englishwoman and was rapidly assimilated into London society where his business acumen led to a fine reputation for his wines. But the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars put his business in jeopardy. Undaunted, Bruno da Silva applied for ‘letters of marque’ (Royal Assent to equip a merchant ship with guns) to secure safe passage of his Port from Oporto to Bristol and to London. His became the first and only Port company to transport its precious cargo of casks of fine Ports under its own armed protection across the treacherous Bay of Biscay, a strong dissuasion to attack during a period when less audacious companies saw their sales dwindle away.
The Port shipping business was continued by Bruno’s son, John da Silva who in 1862 brought into partnership Frederick William Cosens. Together with John’s son, Edward, they became the active partners in Silva & Cosens. Edward da Silva inherited his grandfather’s business ability and the company continued to prosper. Edward became a highly respected figure in the London wine trade and was one of the founders of the Wine Trade Benevolent Society, the leading charity which survives to this day as the principal British wine trade organisation. Edward da Silva was to be the Benevolent’s chairman and then, from 1892, its president for many years.
With the continuing expansion of the firm, Edward da Silva and Frederick Cosens were joined by George Acheson Warre, whose well known family had been involved in the Port trade since its earliest years. ‘GAW’ joined as partner in 1868 and became its driving force in Portugal.
In 1877, Silva & Cosens merged with another leading Port company, Dow & Co, who’s senior partner was James Ramsay Dow, who had made a name for himself in 1856 with the publication of his important treatise, ‘An Inquiry into the Vine Fungus with Suggestions as to a Remedy.’ The Oidium fungus was at the time devastating the Douro’s vineyards.
Although smaller than Silva & Cosens, Dow & Co had become a very highly regarded Port producer with a particularly fine reputation for its Vintage Ports and when the two companies merged, it was decided to adopt DOW’S as the brand name.