Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2003 Late Bottled Vintage Port is a traditional Douro field blend, bottled unfiltered in 2007 with a real cork. It comes in at 105 grams per liter of residual sugar. Fresh, lively and quite rich, this is a Porto with a chocolaty finish, plus fine focus and precision. The delectable flavors make it a bit on the decadent side, but its sunny disposition means that it is never cloying or syrupy. Moreover, it is denser than it first appears. It's not jammy, but it is tightly wound with surprisingly fine mid-palate concentration. It takes awhile (it's better on Day 2) to open up and become more expressive. This seems young, with a long life ahead. It is far, far better on Days 2 and 3. This is pretty fine.
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Wine Enthusiast
The Warre’s style is for unfiltered Late Bottled Vintages, which means they are can age in bottle. This wine, now released at 12 years is a case in point. In richness and in structure it is more like a fast aging Vintage Port. It is full of dark fruits, dense tannins and great concentration. A very fine wine, it is ready to drink.
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Wine Spectator
Supple and mature-tasting, with notes of sandalwood and cedar to the roasted plum and spiced cherry flavors. Minerally finish.
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.