Graham’s 20 Year Old Tawny Port 75cl

Product Information

White port – Best served cold, white port is delicious and refreshing with a splash of tonic, and makes a great alternative to your beloved G&T. Often drunk as an aperitif, we’d recommend serving it with a side of salted almonds. The main shippers look to maintain their own house styles, but it is the ageing process which is of crucial importance to the style and character of a tawny port. In small casks or pipes of between 600 and 640 litres, the wine undergoes a slow process of oxidation and esterification as the colour fades and ethyl esters and acetals develop in the wine. To use the local parlance, the formation of these volatile components – known colloquially as vinagrinho (little vinegar) – are directly influenced by the ambient storage temperature and the rate of evaporation. There has been an unwelcome tendency for some 20-year-old tawnies to be marred by an excess of ‘Douro bake’, a characteristic that seems to be given credence by the tasting panel at the Port and Douro Wine Institute, which has to approve each and every lote of Tawny. The reason that Taylor’s scored so highly in the Decanter World Wine Awards was precisely because the wine had great poise, displaying remarkable freshness as well as age. The family has been present in the Douro for five generations, having been founded in 1882 when Andrew James Symington, a Scot who arrived in Oporto, started working for Graham’s before becoming a partner of Warre & Co and Dow’s Port. Over 70% of the Port wine sold by Symington brands is produced from grapes grown on their own properties. Provided the wine has been well nurtured, a certain amount of bake can be a positive characteristic in a mature tawny. Many shippers use a small component of Douro-matured wine in their aged tawnies.

Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) Port – Aged for 4-6 years, these ports have lots of character but are lighter than traditional vintages. Best with soft cheeses. The Symington family is the dominant force in the Port trade. They own 2,400 hectares of land in the Douro Valley across 26 individual Quintas (Estates) where over 1,000 hectares are planted with vines. They own several well-known brands of Port, and since 1999 have been producing table wines from the Douro. As of 2017 they are also owners of an estate in the Portalegre sub-region to the north east of the Alentejo - their first outside the Douro - with the first wines released in 2019. Like its neighbour Spain, Portugal has been undergoing something of a quiet revolution over the last twenty years or so. A reluctance to follow trends and plant international grapes is now paying dividends and the new breed of full-blooded, fruit-filled wines are more than able to compete on the world stage. The unique flavours that are the hallmark of Portugal's indigenous grape varieties have become its trump card. Ruby Port – Aged in steel or concrete tanks and then bottled, ruby port is renowned for its berry-forward flavour, pronounced spicing and mellow cocoa notes. It’s also the most highly produced and doesn’t tend to improve with age. Ruby port – These tend to be inexpensive, deep ruby-coloured, and often associated with the cheeseboard. Within this category, you’ll find your slightly more premium reserve ports, late bottled vintage port (otherwise known as LBV, these are aged for longer but still designed to be drunk young) and vintage ports. How we test portTo find the best port, the GHI’s panel of 10 WSET-trained experts and consumers tried 32 bottles – from white to ruby – from the leading supermarkets and big brands. Each was tasted blind to prevent brand bias, and they were looking for easy-drinking styles that would work well with a classic cheese board and desserts. Kate Dingwall is a seasoned wine and spirits writer and trained sommelier. She’s spent a good amount of time hiking up and down the Douro Valley and complains about her legs accordingly. Donnelly told db: “Following on from the huge success of the 25-Year-Old Decanter, released at the end of 2021, we are taking the Glenfarclas connoisseur in an unusual and exiting direction away from the wonderful Sherry Cask.” A tawny port aged in the Douro ages differently and more rapidly than that aged in the cooler conditions of Vila Nova de Gaia where most of the shippers’ lodges are to be found. Here, annual evaporation tends to be no more than 1% or 2%, whereas in the Douro the figure is around 3%. One single quinta making 10-year-old tawny estimates that by keeping the wine up in the Douro, the ageing process is accelerated by around 30%. A higher rate of evaporation serves to concentrate the natural residual sugars and the higher temperature produces wine with a distinctive toasted richness, known as ‘Douro bake’. Champagne: Spring frosts followed by one of the hottest summers on record led to small volumes and typically very ripe wines of middling quality. However, 2003 did produce some fine Pinot Noir-dominant blends.

Between the mountains and the coast, on fertile clay soils, is Bairrada (barro is Portuguese for clay). Better known for red wines, this is one of the only wine regions in Portugal to be dominated by a single grape variety,the tannic, high-acid baga, making wines that can be tough and astringent in their youth but which soften with age, becoming beguilingly perfumed. These days many blend baga with non-indigenous grapes to make a friendlier style, but the greatest are pure baga. The area also benefits from late-afternoon breezes which favour the production of fresh, food-friendly whites and increasingly popular sparkling wines. In our view the twenty year category is the perfect balance between value and quality. The Port has spent significant time aging so that the fruit is a little less dominant and in balance with the barrel notes. the tannins and alcohol have mellowed and intergrated. At 20 years aging in oak, the Port will have colours ranging from a reddish to golden Tawny, these exceptional wines are full of fruit and their flavours are more developed and concentrated due to the fact that the wine was aged in small oak casks. The extremely intense aromas and flavours are reminiscent of toasted vanilla and dried fruits, with delicate hints of oak. Crusted Port – A blend of outstanding young ports from two or three harvests, these are left to mature in the bottle, forming a “crust” (natural sediment) as they age. This cookie is set by Rubicon Project to control synchronization of user identification and exchange of user data between various ad services. Pol Roger Portfolio has announced the release of the second in its series of limited edition Glenfarclas decanter bottlings.Their Douro wines include the Altano range, Quinta do Ataíde in the Vilariça valley in the upper Douro, and flagship Chryseia, which along with Post Scriptum and Prazo de Roriz, are produced at Quinta de Roriz in a joint venture with Bruno Prats, ex of Château Cos d'Estournel in Bordeaux. White! Rose! Tawny! Vintage! There are different ports for different people. Whites are bright and best served chilled, vintage ports are pricier, but ready to sit in your cellar. Rose ports are a happy medium – easy for sunny days, after dinner drinks, and beyond. In Piedmont, as elsewhere, the heat wave shrivelled grapes and resulted in some unbalanced musts, although the oldest vines in Barolo and Barbaresco managed to withstand the weather and yield some exceptional wines. As for Tuscany, very difficult heat wave conditions were felt in all but the highest vineyards of Chianti Classico. For this reason, Tuscan 2003 wines tend to be fairly unbalanced.

Tawny port – The name refers to the colour the wine turns after ageing. To have this label, they must be at least two years old, but you’ll also find much older examples, such as our winning 10-year-old (below). The age statement means the liquid is a blend of vintages with an average barrel ageing. Flavours here tend to be nuttier, and can include caramel, cinnamon and chocolate. On the palate, an array of flavours flourishes, mainly to toasted nuts and chocolate. The 40 Year-old is an intense and complex port with a mellow and spicy aftertaste. Burmester, Fonseca, Niepoort, Noval, Sandeman, Taylor and Ramos Pinto all produce 20-year-old tawnies in the premier league. The port shippers themselves often prefer to drink a 20-year-old in preference to vintage. The refinement of a 20-year-old tawny befits the climate and temperament of the Douro better than the heftier, bottle-matured wines which are more at home in cooler climes. Both tawny and ruby ports could benefit from a slight chill, and white ports should be kept at fridge temperature.

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Rosé port – Just like rosé wine, here you can expect to find notes of strawberries and raspberries, alongside a caramel sweetness. Cheese, chocolate, fruity puddings and sorbet are all excellent pairings – serve ice cold for maximum enjoyment. Tawny Port – After being aged in oak barrels, tawny ports are further aged in bottles for periods such as ten, 20, 40 years, etc. The name comes from the tawny colour they develop over time and they tend to be very smooth and mellow, with flavours of fruit and nuts. They go well with cheeses and some puddings. Lisboa is a large, coastal region that runs north from Lisbon. Atlantic breezes help cool the vineyards and maintain the fresh acidity and aromatics in the mostly white wines. North of Bucelas, on the Atlantic west coast lies the strip of rolling countryside that contains nine separate DOCs under the umbrella name of Lisboa. This is Portugal's largest wine producing region in volume terms.