Vintage Port
Vintage Port accounts for only a fraction of the total Port production – which includes Tawny, Ruby, Late-Bottled Vintage and Single Quinta Vintage styles, among others – but is the finest, longest-lived and most expensive style around; the best are as good as any wine in existence. Made from a blend of wines from a producer's finest plots, it is aged for around 18 months in wooden casks, followed by at least 15 years ageing in bottle.
Bottle
£13.95
Bottle
£50.00
With a deep colour, the nose of this Port is a concentrated mixture of spice and fruitcake. This is a full, fat and powerful wine with a good length. A wine with great potential.
Bottle
£51.00
Bottle
£56.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 2cs
Case price (Bottle 12 x 75cl)
Bottle 12 x 75cl 8cs
Case price (Bottle 12 x 75cl)
Bottle 12 x 75cl 5cs
(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer)
Bottle
£76.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 12cs
Case price (Bottle 6 x 75cl)
Bottle 6 x 75cl 41cs
Bottle
£80.00
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
With a beautiful, rich and complex nose, on the palate this is quite dry. There is a serious juxtaposition of the ripe and dried fruits with expansive tannins. This has challenging, layered flavours and the promise of longevity. Very expressive and powerful Port.
Bottle
£77.50
Bottle 6 x 75cl 102cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Taylor’s is always a treat for the senses and intellect alike, its synaesthetic appeal the fruits of ancient vines and traditional vinification. David Guimaraens, Head Winemaker, is delighted with the wine and praises both its grip and its overall complexity. We concur!
Bottle
£78.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 7cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 6cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 2cs
(Simon Field MW, Berrys’ Port Buyer)
Bottle
£78.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 13cs
Typically for Warre, this is a big, powerful wine, packed with lots of deep concentrated fruit, wrapped in a rich, rounded tannic structure.
Bottle
£81.50
Bottle 6 x 75cl 10cs
Case price (Bottle 12 x 75cl)
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Neal Martin - eRobertParker.com #207 Jun 2013
Sporting an opaque, black-colored robe with dark purple trim, the 2003 Fonseca Vintage Port exhibits a nose of profound depth. Its sweet black mass of dark fruit and spice aromas leads to a character of immense depth, richness, and weight. Full-bodied, viscous, and almost impenetrable, this dense, backward port is powerful and exceptionally long in the finish. Possibly the most masculine Fonseca I’ve ever encountered, it coats the taster’s palate with licorice, jammy black fruits, and notes of chocolate that last for over a minute. This blockbuster will require at least three decades to fully blossom.
Pierre Rovani - Wine Advocate #161 Oct 2005
Bottle
£90.50
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Tom Cave - Private Account Manager
Bottle
£91.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 11cs
Bottle
£92.00
Bottle
£91.50
Bottle 6 x 75cl 2cs
Chris Pollington, Fine Wine Account Manager
Bottle
£96.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 2cs
Bottle
£100.00
Bottle
£100.00
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle
£137.50
Bottle 6 x 75cl 4cs
Bottle
£195.00
(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer)
Bottle
£282.00
Poised behind its deep mahogany sheen, with aromatics of the Coffee House in St James's and the post prandial dining rooms of Pall Mall, the wine descants a rich rolling hymn to longevity and extraordinary complexity. Cloves, raisins, dates and elusive spices inform a palate which is a labyrinthine web of effortless contradiction; rich and restrained, intense and ethereal, venerable and yet incredibly fresh. To be celebrated and appreciated in equal measure, with quiet stentorian gratitude.
Simon Field MW - Port Buyer
Three exceptional and rare wines were chosen for the final Graham’s 90 blend described by the Symington family thus: Harvest 1935
The 1935 Tawny Port is a wine of remarkable elegance and beauty with fine acidity which is key to the balance of a wine of this age. This was a year of low yields in the Douro but of great quality, and classic Vintage Ports were made under perfect harvest conditions. Some Port companies declared the 1934 and some the 1935. Both years have proved to have aged superbly well.
The 1935 Vintage is considered by some to be amongst the greatest Ports of the first half of the 20th century. Andrew James Symington wrote at Quinta do Bomfim in the Alto Douro on 14th October 1935: “I am inclined to think that the quality and good colour inspires hope that the 1935 may prove good enough to make a Jubilee vintage – quantity is less than last year – but quality appears to be better.”
The three Symington brothers then working in the family business; Maurice, John and Ronald and their father Andrew James, did not declare this year, but they set aside a small quantity of 1935 Port to age in cask in view of the excellent quality of the best wines and to mark the Jubilee of King George V.
Charles has selected a small parcel of this extraordinary wine for the Graham’s 90.
Harvest 1924
The 1924 Vintage was widely declared by the leading Port houses and the wines have aged exceptionally well over the decades. An unusually cool summer resulted in wines with very good acidity, a hallmark of the year.
Gordon Cosens wrote at Quinta do Bomfim in the Alto Douro on the 10th October 1924: “Weather being fine throughout the gathering. The mostos showed good colour and life. That the '24s will turn out to be better than an ordinary vintage seems to be the general opinion.”
This 1924 Tawny Port originates from Quinta do Bom Retiro Pequeno, a very fine vineyard in the Rio Torto valley that is owned by the Symington family. Matured in cask at the estate until the mid-1960s, this Port was transported down to the Lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia where it has been kept for the last 50 years.
This wine has all the characteristics of Douro ageing, the result of very cold winters and intensely hot summers, with a powerful concentration of richness, honey and toasted coffee and is a perfect foil for the elegant 1935
Harvest 1912
A great classic year in the Douro that followed two legendary vintages, the 1904 and the immortal 1908. Widely declared by the best Port houses, the 1912 vintage Ports were bottled in the spring of 1914, just a few months before the outbreak of hostilities in August of that year. Although it’s early life was marked by the devastation of The Great War, this wine reached maturity in the late 1920s when it came to be recognised as one of the greatest ever Vintage Ports and was often served at fine dinners in the exuberant Roaring Twenties.
Amyas Warre (son of George Warre) wrote at Quinta do Bomfim in the Alto Douro on 23rd September 1912: “The grapes in all the fine vineyards were uniformly ripe and had all been gradually brought to this state of perfection.” This was an historic year for the Symington family as George Warre, whose family had been Port producers since 1729, decided to retire to England in 1912 and proposed a merger of Dow’s with the smaller Port company of Warre’s, the latter being then owned by Andrew James Symington.
Andrew accepted the proposal, initiating a partnership between the two families that was to last until the 1950s when the Warre family sold their remaining shares to the Symingtons. To mark the start of the partnership a small parcel of the 1912 Port was set aside in cask and it is a little of this wine that has been used by Charles in the Graham’s 90 Port.
The 1912 Tawny has extraordinary intensity having passed its centenary a few years ago and Charles Symington felt that this essence of well-aged Port would complement the elegant freshness of the 1935 Tawny.
Bottle 1 x 75cl 3cs
Bottle 1 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 1 x 75cl 1cs
Tom Cave, Cellar Plan Manager With the glass sitting in front of me, I am enticed by the incredible aromas of caramelized walnuts and dried fruit leaping from the glass. Such is the concentration of the nose, one could spend much time salivating over the layers of complexity derived by 42 years of careful maturation. The palate is intensely flavoured with warming notes of dried Seville orange, allspice, effortlessly bound by a silky texture. Moving through to a savoury character towards the finish, offset by a lovely note of molasses and figs, the acidity keeps it in check, carrying the flavours through to the long and graceful finish. Perfectly balanced, full bodied yet charming, this Graham’s 1972 Tawny Port is a treat and a rarity.
Chris Lamb, Private Account Manager
The 1972 Single Harvest Tawny Port was bottled in 2015 and comes in with 125 grams per liter of residual sugar. It's a beauty. It starts slow and builds to a nice crescendo, with the acidity emerging to cut the fruit. This elegant wine has a sweet finish to go with its vibrancy and energy. It's a pretty picture overall with caramel, molasses and hints of chocolate on the end, some typical Tawny flavors. Note: This comes with a bar-top cork. Assuming a good cork, it will last indefinitely.
The three Single Quinta Ports here were bottled in 2006 and are current releases. They are released late so as to be drinkable, more or less, on release.
93/100 Mark Squires, eRobertParker.com #221 Oct 2015
Bottle 1 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Tom Cave - Cellar Plan Manager
Quite a delicate yet complex nose of Muscavado sugar, caramel, honeyed walnuts, pine kernels and a twist of citrus all supporting a high-toned raciness. The gentle spice and zesty thread at the core really keeps this 50 year old wine bright and invigorating and perfectly contrasts the mouth-coating viscosity. Evolving as it goes, I picked up hints of coffee, gingerbread and burnt orange along with brown sugar. There was also a gentle bitterness to the finish that reminded me of fresh homemade lemonade and left me reaching for a top up.
Peter Newton - Private Account Manager
Single Harvest Ports are blended wines from a single year which have been judiciously aged in oak casks.
The 1966 offers a laudable opportunity to drink and enjoy a fully aged and wonderfully mature Port wine of the aged Tawny / Colheita style. Having been aged in wood, decanting is not necessary and once the bottle is open the wine will not deteriorate for at least a week.
Taylor’s is the most aristocratic of Port shippers and is respected as one of the leading holders of mature Tawny Port.
Bottle 1 x 75cl 2cs
Bottle 1 x 75cl 1cs
The blend is mainly Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz, with a small percentage of Souzão sourced from some of the best vineyards of the Douro Superior. The nose glories in notes of gum cistus and violet, and the palate is beautifully rounded, yet with finely etched tannins on the finish – making this vintage, to my mind, the best since 1994.
Simon Field MW, Wine Buyer
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Any release from Quinta do Noval is worthy of high respect, and all the more as 2015 was within a whisker of being a generally ‘declared’ vintage. They have here always followed a path of releasing a Vintage if the quality is there, which it undoubtedly is, regardless of the general trend among the other Port shippers.
"This is a very fine Vintage Port from Noval; they have crafted themselves an enviable position as one of the finest makers of beautifully finessed, stylish wines that will grace any cellar and make very rewarding drinking over the decades to come.
The quality in the 2015 vintage is undeniably very high and immediately apparent on tasting. Typically dense, yet with elegance as only to be expected from a fine Noval. Dense, dark fruits, nicely concentrated with a whiff of cinnamon that keeps it nimble; the finish is long and reassuringly elegant. Noval always has a touch of French élan about it. Drinking perhaps 2028 and well into the late 2030s."
Tom Cave - Cellar Plan Manager
Bottle 6 x 75cl 2cs
Deep ruby in colour, this is an especially expressive Reserva style as the grapes were able to mature perfectly in 2015. Elegant floral aromas of violet are complemented by dark cherry, blackberry and plum on the nose. On the palate there is real structure thanks to generous silky tannins. Drink now to 2025.