Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This wine opens with aromas of creme de cassis, a toasty, oxidative twist and a touch of tobacco. The palate is full-bodied yet bright and agile, featuring integrated sweetness that leads to a smoky finish with hints of salted caramel.
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Wine Spectator
A very alluring style, with toasted sesame, salted caramel, golden raisin, singed cinnamon and sandalwood notes leading the way for halva, pistachio and dried persimmon flavors. There's lots here, with a suave finish to boot.
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Wine Enthusiast
As with so many 20-year-old Tawny Ports, this is at its peak of balance. The fruit is just there while the generous spice, dried sultanas and richness from long wood aging have concentrated the wine. It is ready to drink.
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Wine & Spirits
All about texture, this wine’s creamy richness gives it a luscious feel. The sweet flavors of macerated cherries flesh out the wine while woody notes and quinine bitterness firm it up. Its flavor density acts as a foil to the wine’s warmth.
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.