Winemaker Notes
A full-bodied port, with ripe and soft tannins, excellent structure, and complexity.
A classic vintage Port from the region, it is perfect served on its own, and also delicious when served with aged Stilton or other blue cheeses and nuts.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This expressive version leads with violet and graphite notes, showing a solid core of blackberry and black currant preserves waiting to unwind. Reveals a subtle tug of warm earth through the finish. Not showy, but very solidly built for sure. Best from 2035 through 2055.
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James Suckling
This shows notes of ripe blackberries and blueberries with orange peel and sweet spices. Firm and chewy with a full body and medium sweetness. It shows youth and crunchiness now, yet quite tight with a chalky finish. Try after 2026.
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Wine Enthusiast
While it is, of course, still young, it is possible to discern the wine's rich future. With sweetness as well as dried fruit and dense tannins, the structure is there as is the wine's flesh. It is sure to age well. Drink this fine Port from 2029.
Cellar Selection -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Vintage Port (formerly called "Vintage Port Adelaide," now rebranded, but it's the same wine) is a field blend from old vines (dominated by Touriga Franca) aged only in stainless steel. It was bottled in May 2022 with 76 grams of residual sugar. This unusually dry Vintage Port is stern and has some power, but it lacks that big, pure and bold fruit this normally shows. It is still well done, but I'd give this one a bit longer than normal in the cellar, even if it is not impossibly astringent. It has a real backbone and the fruit needs to develop. It will show better in the early 2030s.
Rating: 91+
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.