The history of Kopke begins with Nicolau Köpke, who settled in Portugal as Consul General of the Hanseatic League in 1636, shipped the first bottles of wine as early as 1638 and rose to become a major port wine producer by buying an agricultural property in 1781. Through acquisitions, such as the Quinta de São Luiz
Sandeman, an important sherry and port wine house, owned by the Portuguese company Sogrape since 2001, offers very high quality vintage ports. An ideal Christmas present for someone who likes to drink red port. So it’s the best to order more of it! At Christmas we enjoyed the Vau Vintage Port 2000 from Sandeman with homemade chocolate ice cream, which it went very well with.
Theoretically, a Tawny is a port wine which is aged for a longer time in the barrel until its red color changes to amber (tawny), which means the wine becomes a Tawny. This usually starts after about 6 years of barrel maturation. However, since port wines of different ages are always blended for a Tawny, as in the case of a 10 year old tawny, the indication of age is not very precise – but approximately true. However, all Tawny with age 10, 20, 30 or over 40 year old are checked and released by the IVDP (Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto). … Read more ...
Many wine drinkers know Vintage Port, whereas Colheita is largely unknown, and only few know which port wine style it is. Its brownish color identifies it as a Tawny type port and since the Portuguese word Colheita means harvest, a Colheita Port is a Tawny that comes from the grapes of a single vintage. A Vintage Tawny, so to speak, just like the Ruby typ Vintage port from a single vintage. But while the dark to black-red port wines of the Ruby type are aged in large barrels with little contact with atmospheric oxygen, the mostly amber to mahogany-colored
At the Forum Vini, in November 2018 in Munich there were a lot of dry wines but also some sweet wines like port wine. I tasted two port wines, a Magalhães LBV (Late Bottled Vintage) 2013 of Quinta do Silval and a 10 Years Tawny Port by Vieira de Sousa.
For more than 15 years, the Douro Boys are probably the best advertising medium for the Douro region and its wines. Best known are the port wines from the Douro, besides there are excellent dry, red and white still wines. To gain more prominence for these dry wines, in addition to the port wine, is a major concern of the Douro Boys. The Douro Boys are the wineries, Niepoort, Quinta Vale D.Maria, Quinta do Vallado, Quinta do Vale Meão and Quinta do Crasto, represented by Dirk van der Niepoort, Francisca van Zeller, João Roquette Álvares Ribeiro, Francisco Olazabal and Tómas Roquette, all from the respective owner families (from … Read more ...
There were some wineries from the Douro, who also presented port wine in addition to dry wines, at the Wines of Portugal Tasting on the 13th floor of the representative office of a German noble automobile brand, where one also had a great view over Munich.
However, my time planned was too little, so I limited myself to only two port wine producers. Pocas, because I had got aquainted to its representative in the elevator going up to the tasting in the 13th floor and Quinta do Infantado only because this Quinta offers their port wines not only in 750 ml bottles, but also in the smaller quantities of … Read more ...
Chocolate desserts are usually accompanied by red dessert wines, with us being mostly red Vin Doux Naturel from France. Sometimes a change might be fine, so we have chosen as a companion to a chocolate chili mousse a vintage port wine. These show up the name vintage and are vinified from grapes of a vintage. Three are types of it: Vintage, Single Quinta Vintage and Late Bottled Vintage, abbreviated LBV. Vintage is produced only in very good years, must be registered by the producer at the Port Wine Institute (IVDP) and confirmed after organoleptic tasting to be vintage-worthy. Single Quinta Vintage is produced in good years, but does not require registration and acceptance at the IVDP. However, both wines in principle undergo the same vinification and he same aging, 2 years in barrels followed by bottling and maturing. Entirely different the Late Bottled Vintage, which usually matures for 4-6 years in the
Port wine is not only available as a Ruby Port or a tan to amber-colored Tawny Port, but also as a white port wine and, for about 7 – 8 years, also in a rose-colored version. Axel Probst, probably the most famous German port wine expert, presented six different port wines at the Welcome to the World of Port Wine tasting at Prowein. Four of them are presented here, each corresponding to one of the port wine types already mentioned and costing less than € 20 (Tasted Wines), such they are really good for entering the world of port wine.
Churchill‘s Dry White Port
Orange-colored amber, apricot … Read more ...
The Insituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto (IVDP) conducted several port wine tastings at Prowein fair 2015. Port wine expert Axel Probst, member of the Brotherhood Confraria do Vinho do Porto, moderated the tasting, labeled Port Wine Treasures from 4 Decades, in which, with the exception of a Fine White Port, he presented matured Tawny or Colheita, i.e. barrel-matured Tawny Ports from one harvest year.
For all longer matured Tawny, as well as for the Colheita, a maturation period of at least seven years in large wooden barrels (pipas) is required, but many of these wines are matured longer. Years of contact with the … Read more ...