Vintage Port
Vintage port refers to port wine made from the grapes of a single, exceptional year. It then spends no more than two years or two and a half years in a barrel or stainless steel cask before being bottled. Wines age much more slowly in a bottle than a barrel. Vintage ports require between 10 to 40 years of aging in the bottle.
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| Late Bottled Vintage Port |
Vintage ports are often bottled with their grape lees and thus should usually be settled and decanted before drunk.
Single quinta vintage ports are vintage ports made from a single quinta rather than from several wine estates.
Vintage ports make up about 2-3% of the port market and vintages are only usually declared around 3 times a decade on average to guarantee their high price and standing. Vintage port years include 1945, 1963, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003 and 2007.
The IVDP - Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto - is the final arbiter as to whether a wine can be declared vintage or not.
All the major wine lodges such as Broadbent, Cockburn, Croft, Dow, Gould Campbell, Graham, Osborne, Offley, Sandeman, Taylor, and Warre in Vila Nova de Gaia across the River Douro from Ribeira in Porto produce vintage port.
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| A selection of vintage port |
Late Bottled Vintages
Late Bottled Vintage Ports (LBVs) are produced from grapes from a single year. However, they spend more than 2 years in the barrel or cask, typically 4-6 years and are ready to drink once bottled, though continue to age in the bottle for a few more years.
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| Taylor's Late Bottled vintage 2013 |
More on Port & Porto
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| Taylor's 300-year-old cellars © Taylor's |
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| Late Bottled Vintage |
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