Winemaker Notes
Lifted and intensely fresh blackcurrant and black cherry aromas, wrapped in secondary notes of mint and pine resin. Succulent, concentrated palate, simultaneously rounded and silky smooth. This wine is pure seduction, with alluring flavors of blackberry and cacao, punctuated by peppery tannins that provide a spicy and firm structure. Irresistible to drink now, though it has bags of life left in it. Although a big, generous wine, this 2009 displays Warre’s signature elegance and balance.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Long maturation in the bottle after wood aging has given this wine great quality and style. It has a dry edge that is typical of Warre's, along with mature dried fruit and spice flavors. The wine is fine; it's ready to drink now.
Editors' Choice -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Late Bottled Vintage Port is the new release, although hardly a new wine. It is a traditional Douro field blend, heavy on Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca. It was bottled unfiltered in 2013 with a long cork after four years in cask and then held back at Warre's lodge for bottle aging before release. It comes in with 109 grams per liter of residual sugar. It's pretty spectacular. This unfiltered LBV is expressive and delicious. With the extra aging, it is also velvety and harmonious, but this certainly has power to spare the next day. It has the depth to coat the palate and fill the mouth too. With 90 minutes of air, it is very fresh, but it finally shows welcome hints of complexity. It does everything well and most things brilliantly. It should hold beautifully, at least for 20 years from its vintage date, but I'm guessing 30 may be more like it. For now, let's be a little cautious, but if you have good storage, there is no reason to worry about it anytime soon.
If I had a quibble here, on the second day it was tasted it seemed to become a very different wine. What was balanced and harmonious became much riper and more angular as the power and big fruit both became more obvious. Nothing made me retract my initial positive view, but it did create a ceiling, at least for the moment. This is a Big Boy and it will be interesting to see if holds its balance and meets expectations as it ages more. I think it will.
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Wine Spectator
This has matured nicely, offering spice box, singed raisin, Christmas pudding and steeped boysenberry and blackberry compote notes framed by a gentle cedar note. Tasty. Drink now through 2024. 5,000 cases made, 1,500 cases imported.
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.