Van Zellers & Co VZ 30 Years Old Tawny Port
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Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling -
Wine
Enthusiast
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The NV 30 Years Very Old Tawny Port is a field blend from vines averaging 35 years in age. It was bottled in November 2019 with a long cork and 98 grams of residual sugar. If the 20 Year this issue is a sunny and mouthwatering Tawny, this adds more complexity while retaining the acidity. This shows relative austerity for its category, much like the 10 Year did, but the acidity makes it livelier and better balanced. Laced with molasses and caramel, this is dense, tight and gripping. It finishes surprisingly dry in perception, and with plenty of pure power. This is impressive overall. In style, it initially leaned a little more to a Cognac (that is just a relative descriptor, so don't misunderstand). Plus, the acidity always brings it to a good place. This will work on its own, but it also will be a great food pairing for appropriate foods like various cheeses.
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James Suckling
Attractive notes of walnut and toffee, with dried figs and orange blossom. Toasted almonds, too. Very polished, almost creamy. Clean and fresh with moderate sweetness and a linear finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
The superlative wood and dried fruit flavors have coalesced to yield an intense wine. Its sweet sultana flavors and generous richness go with the spice and pepper edge from the wood aging. It is a great wine that is ready to drink.
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.
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.