Winemaker Notes
Deep-colored, dark red center with just a hint of age showing through on the darkred rim. The backbone provided by the large Touriga Nacional component is evident in the fragrant, floral nose of roses and violets. The palate is generous and sumptuous with black fruit and licorice flavors, balanced by schist tannins and the fresh acidity typicalof Warre’s bottle-matured wines, giving them hallmark balance and elegance, as wellas structure. This wine may be broached now, although it will repay keeping for upto a further decade
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This has matured nicely, settling in with a mix of mulled black currant and plum fruit, carried by a finely grained alder spine and backed by a warm Christmas pudding note. Drink now through 2023.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The latest LBV from this estate, the 2008 Late Bottled Vintage Port is primarily Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca that spent four years in wood and was bottled in 2012. From a cooler vintage, it’s made in a more seamless, elegant style yet still has beautiful depth of fruit, with classic plum, jammy blackberry, spice box, chocolate, and cigar aromatics all emerging from the glass. It holds up beautifully with air, has medium to full-bodied richness, a solid spine of acidity, and a great finish. It’s a beautiful, elegant LBV that’s drinking great today yet will easily evolve for another decade.
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.