Tag Archives: Taylor

Our Christmas Tasting

Due to Covid, some of the family was ill on December 23 these last couple of years, when we were about to hold our Christmas tasting. Something we’ve written about on our website in January 2022 and January 2021.

But on the first of August this year, we finally managed to gather the family, something we had looked forward to. We kicked off the evening with two champagnes: Blanc de Blanc Sillery Grand Cru 2015 from Francois Secondé, and Brut Epernay 2004 from Alfred Gratien. To accompany the starter, we had Clos de la Coulée de Serrant 1992 from Joly, Savennières, Loire and Clos des Chevaliers 2011 from Jean Charton. The main course was served with Ch. Mouton Rotschild 1952 and Ch. Margeaux 1952, and the dessert was enjoyed with Burmester and Sandeman Vintage Port – both from 1922. It was a marvelous, but very late, Christmas meal.

This December, we did not want to miss another Christmas, so we started our tasting already on the 22^ndof December with Lilbert’s Champagne Cramant 2018, Blanc de Blanc, Grand Cru. To the starter, salmon and shrimp pie, we had a Chablis Premier Cru Troesmes 2018 by Le Domaine d’Henri and Clos de la Coulee de Serrant 2003. With the main course, a delicious deer, we enjoyed Ch. Margeaux and Ch. Haut Brion – both from 1973 – and with the cheese: Taylor and Fonseca Vintage Port from 1963.

On the 23rd of December, we finally had our great Christmas dinner, all 15 of us – the entire family. We started off with J. Lassalle’s Cuvee Angeline Prem Cru 2009 and Marie-Noelle Ledru’s Viticultrice Grand Cru from 2010. We had smoked heart from ox, reindeer, and elk, and with that we enjoyed Ch. Lafite Rothschild, Ch. Latour and Ch. Cheval Blanc – all from 1973. The main course was fish (witch flounder), which was served with the following wines: Clos Ste Hune 1991 from Trimbach, Alsace, Ch. Laville Haut Brion 1976 from Grave and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet 2017 from Fontaine-Gagnard in Chassagne Montrachet.

The dessert was a Charlotte Russe cake and with it, we enjoyed Vintage Port Ramos Pinto and Hooper 1923 and Royal Oporto 1868. It was a marvelous meal and evening!

Vintage Port 1985 Tasting

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Despite all cancelled tastings, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we managed to hold a Great Tasting of Vintage Port 1985 in our Wine club in Malmö, Sweden in September. 1985 is ranked as the best Vintage in the 1980s and expectations were of course high with. We had managed to collect 59 different Vintage Ports, a quite complete setup with all the big houses represented.

Vintage Port 1985, still quite dark ruby in the colour

At an age of 35 years the Vintage should now show its full potential and it certainly did. There were many wonderful wines and some of them are actually still appearing as young with impressive tannins and great structure. Fonseca was the winner of the tasting. Dow’s and Taylor’s were not so far behind. All three are wonderful today and will remain so for several years.

You can read all about the tasting, results and tasting notes on our page dedicated to the tasting.

Something nice from the 60s with The Port Forum

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The Port Forum is an internet forum as well as a devoted group of port wine lovers. We attended a “high-flying” tasting organized at the Royal Air Force Club in central London. The premises were very elegant and we were awed and could hear the sound of the Spitfire planes in our mind when we admired the hundreds of paintings of air crafts hanging on the walls.
With participants from Sweden, Germany, Portugal and Italy in addition to the U.K., we were a fairly international group. The theme was set to “Something nice from the 60s” and everybody brought a bottle of their own choosing to fit the theme.
The final selection became quite interesting. Two bottles were vintage port mixed by the importer- Harvey’s 1962 (Cockburn+Martinez) and Averys 1963 (Sandeman+Fonseca+Taylor). Three bottles pre 1963, 8 bottles of 1963 and three bottles of 1966.

Croft 1960 – Fonseca 1960 – Harvey’s 1962
Averys 1963 and it’s components – Sandeman 1963 – Fonseca’s 1963 – and Taylor 1963
Warre 1963 – Dow 1963 – Feist 1963 – and Dalva Golden White Tawny 1963
Fonseca 1966 – Taylor 1966 – Noval 1966

The tasting was a lovely experience. Most bottles were very good but a few were not at peak performance. This is the risk you have to take when you drink wine that is more than 50 years old. As a vintage, the legendary 1963 has peaked and some of the wines are beginning to deteriorate, but most are still very good and will stay on high level for many years to come. It is also noteworthy that 1966 is keeping very well in general, and some were perceived as quite young – at an age of 52 years. This was a great and quite wonderful tasting for us from Sweden and we hope we can go to London again at these occasions.

The 2018 Port Wine Fair in Roskilde, Denmark

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Once again this annual fair was a huge success with two sold out tasting rounds, a lot of representatives from the Producers and some really nice Port Wines to taste.

As usual the fair is focusing on quality port like Tawnies with age, Colheitas and of course Vintage Port. We are impressed by the many older Vintage Ports available on the Danish market and there was also a possibility to taste many fantastic examples of mature Vintage Ports. For example we very much enjoyed Sandeman 1967 and 1975, the later on Magnum! We also got to taste Dow’s Vintage Port 1975 on Magnum. Both 1975’s are of course mature, but you should remember that it ages a bit slower on Magnum, and often the best selection of the Vintage is bottled on the larger bottles. So both of these are really nice at the moment and will be so for some years to come.

It was also possible to taste mini-verticals of several producers.
Taylor: 1997, 2003, 2007, 2008 (Vargellas) and 2015 (Vargellas).
Warre’s: 1980, 1985, 2000, 2001 (Quinta da Cavadinha) and 2006 (Quinta da Cavadinha)
Sandeman: 1967, 1975, 1988 (Quinta do Vau) and 1999 (Sandeman Vau), 2013 (Quinta do Seixo)
Quinta da Romaneira: 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2015
Quinta das Lamelas: 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2015
Portal: 2007, 2011, 2013 (Quinta dos Muros) and 2014 (Quinta dos Muros)

It was also the first time for us that we could taste Graham’s The Stone Terraces 2015 Vintage Port. A fantastic young Vintage Port that will be very interesting to follow during the coming decades.

Finally we also tasted some lovely old ports matured in wood, like Palmer 40 years Tawny, DR 50 years White and DR 70 years Tawny. Fantastic wines if you prefer port wines matured in wood.

Great Tasting – Vintage 1983

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The Wine Society 18%, Malmö Sweden, had a Great Tasting on the 16th and 18th March 2017 of 31 different 1983 Vintage Ports. As always for these Great Tastings the expectations were high, especially for a Vintage like 1983 that has been praised by wine critics and experts. To be honest, this time the truth did not meet our expectations. There were too many wines that were over the hill and showed volatile acidity or oxidation. Unfortunately there were also some that we classified as defect due to bad corks. We have had several other Great Tastings of older Vintages but we have never had so many bad or poor wines. On the other hand some of the wines are really good, you just need to know which they are, and avoid the others.

As always both Taylor and Fonseca are good, even if some in the group did not fully appreciate the Fonseca. Both are quite mature, the Taylor looks surprisingly light in colour but it is as always very generous in the bouquet and wonderfully delicate on the palate with raisins, orange zest, dark chocolate and cacao. It is a full bodied wine and has a long attractive finish.

Some of the absolute best wines from the Vintage are from the Symington’s. When looking at the total ranking from the total tasting group they actually took the four top places! The top scorer of the night was Quarles Harris followed by Gould Campbell, Grahams and then Smith Woodhouse. The Quarles Harris is still quite dark in colour but with a mature yellow rim. It shows all the attributes of a Vintage Port on its peak, with coffee, tea, cacao and much more in the bouquet, On the palate the wine seems to remain forever in the mouth – truly a perfectly balanced port wine.

Please read all of the tasting notes and all our scores and ranking under Great Tasting 1983.

Portvinsmessen – The annual portwine event in Roskilde

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On March 4 we were participating in the annual event in Roskilde, Denmark, called ‘Portvinsmessen’ (The port wine fair). As usual many Danish importers were represented and several of them were backed up by representatives from the port producers.

Both tasting periods of the event were sold out and it is apparent that Denmark continues being a big market for quality port. Focus was on quality ports like Tawny with age, Colheitas and Vintage Ports. As usual our focus was on the Vintage Ports and we provide tasting notes for all of them here on the site.

We were especially impressed by some of the more mature Vintage Ports available, like the range of Warre’s Vintages with 1980, 1985 and 2000 also accompanied by their single quinta Cavadinha from 1998 and 2001. All provided by Kjaer Sommerfeldt.

We also of course liked the Taylor Vintages from 1997, 2003, 2007 and 2009. All very impressive, and best of them was the 2007. These are available from Portvinsyd.

Last but not least, the brothers from Vintageportvin.dk, showed there wide range of mature quality Vintage Ports. This year they had extended there offering with a range of Romaneira Vintages and also with Sandeman. From Sandeman we could try some of the Vau Vintages, from the very first, 1988 (the only one called Quinta da Vau) to 1997 and 1999. Best of the Sandeman Vintages was the astonishing Vintage 1970 which is a fantastic port wine showing what this producer is capable of when it makes it best. For us, this was the best Vintage Port of the day.

We also tasted a fantastic old Colheita-blend simply called Porto 201, a blend of 1843, 1870 and 1888 (43+70+88=201) from Maynard, very kindly offered to us by Alvaro van Zeller.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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As you may have read, most ports enjoyed by us are at home with the family. At Christmas of course the family is joining at home and we always enjoy a lot of great food and great wine together. This year we started at the 21^st of December with vintage Brut 2000 Cuvee Nicholas from Bilcart-Salmon and after that duck liver mousse together with Suduiraut 2006.

On the 22^nd we ate warm goat cheese with honey together with Gewürztraminer Trockenbeerenauslese Selection 1980 from Lenz Moser in Rust, Austria and after that warm smoked salmon together with L’Homme Mort Prem. Cru from F.Gueguen in Chablis and then dessert with a port i.e. Vintage Quinta Vale D. Maria 2001. Lillejul

On the 23^rd we started with Champagne, vintage 1983 Salon. After that a breast and terrine of teal together with Ch. Corton Grancey from Louis Latour, then filé of red deer together with DRC’s Richbourg 1984 and Ch. Mouton Rotschild 1943 and as dessert orange cheese cake with dulce de leche together with Vintage Port Quinta do Noval 1934 and No 1 Especial Vinha Velha 1834 from Quinta de Romariz.

On Christmas Eve we had traditional Swedish Christmas food and ended with Malvedos 1988 from Graham and before bed-time our Christmas wine which is a Ruländer Trockenbeerenauslese from Jakob Neumer in Rheinhessen which has received both Grosse Preis and Goldener Kammaer Preis.

On the 25^th we started with Champagne Brut Vintage 1989 Grand Année from Bollinger. Then we enjoyed a terrine of salmon with a sauce of gewürztraminer from Alsace together with Chablis 1^ercru Vaulignot from Louis Moreau and Alsace Riseling Grand Cru Wiebelsberg from Kreydenweiss, after that springbok and sauce from morels with Ch. Mouton Rorschild 1964 and Ch. Lafite Rotschild 1950 and ended with a Christmas pudding an stilton together with Vintage Port Taylor 1955 and Croft 1914.

We in the family had a wonderful Christmas!

The Fladgate Partnership acquires Wiese & Krohn

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The Fladgate Partnership, the owner of Taylor and Fonseca, continues the trend of consolidation in the Port industry by buying the Port firm of Wiese & Krohn, previously owned and run by the Falcão Carneiro family. Wiese & Krohn was founded in 1865 by two Norwegian entrepreneurs and is the owner of Quinta do Retiro Novo. Wiese & Krohn is renowned for its Colheitas and old tawnies.

The deal includes Wiese & Krohn’s brand, stocks and vineyard holdings, including an estimated 5 million liters of port dating back to 1863. By acquiring Wiese & Krohn Taylor is taking a major step in strengthening its position in the tawny and colheita market.