Winemaker Notes
Opaque purple black color with a narrow violet rim. Characteristically stylish and racy, with a nose of dense blackcurrant and woodland fruit overlaid with discreet herbal nuances and scents of violet and rose petals. As usual the classic Taylor Fladgate elegance and understatement conceal the wine's inner strength and stamina. On the palate it displays the lean, sinewy and tightly knit tannins which are so much a feature of the house style and the vibrant and clearly delineated fruit flavors which are the hallmark of the 2007 vintage.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A classic baby Vintage Port nose of blackberry, currant and a little bit of green lemon leaf. Full-bodied and medium sweet. There's a solid core of ripe fruit and powerful tannins, with grip. The real deal. 94-97 points
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port is a blend of multiple sites meant to express the house style in a great year. It displays a superb aromatic array of pencil lead, Asian spices, incense, blackberry, and floral notes. Dense, suave, and opulent on the palate, this is a mouth-filling, intense, layered wine that has superb grip and concentration. It will effortlessly age for 25+ years and still be delivering pleasure at age 50.
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Wine Enthusiast
Enticing violet and black currant aromas are followed by ripe plum and spice flavors. Maybe this isn’t the most powerful Taylor Fladgate vintage ever, but it is balanced, opulent, beautifully made, the tannins fine, layered, with exquisite final acidity.
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Wine & Spirits
At its best, this wine is a vibrant, huge young Porto knocking out all the others with its delicious power-a Master of the Universe wine. It's a blast of schist, cherry, raspberry, pomegranate and black licorice, all held in a supple grip that slides down the throat just as slowly as the wine's color slides down the side of the glass. At this stage, the score shows some restraint, the wine having gone into a funk after a day of air and becoming reduced and difficult, only to rebound the following day. Still, this demonstrates the potential to be one of the greatest Port wines David Guimaraens has made, coming from a balanced year with beauty rather than aggression in the tannin. It will be fascinating to compare this to the 2003 as the wines age over the next 50 years.
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.