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  • Country ranking ?

    4
  • Producer ranking ?

    1
  • Decanting time

    5h
  • When to drink

    from 2025

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“Two factors stand out in 2016. The spring was extremely wet meaning that the vines had plenty of water throughout the summer. Secondly, the ripening season started relatively late and lasted well into September. This meant that the crop was very evenly ripened and all elements were in perfect balance at the time of the harvest. Picking started later than usual, particular in the Pinhão Valley where the Taylor’s properties only began their harvests in the last week of September.” 

“The hallmark of the Taylor’s 2016 is the very fine fruit quality and the magnificent tannins supported by a lively acidity.”

David Fonseca Guimaraens, Head Wine Maker

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The Story

Taylor’s Port is the last of the original English founding port companies to remain family owned. It has never been bought, sold or taken over. The company is run by descendants of the founders. This ensures its outlook and philosophy remains focused on the production of top quality ports.
Taylor’s were also the first to invest heavily in property in the Upper Douro. The recent acquisition of Quinta do Junco illustrates the continued commitment of the firm to producing premium quality wines. Their Estates at Vargellas, Terra Feita and Junco, have been carefully selected and all have the prize Casa do Douro “A” classification. The main grape varieties used are Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Tinto Cão and Tinta Amarela.
Each Estate has a carefully planned programme of new planting to maintain the standards of the estate wines - used for the famous Taylor’s Vintage Ports, single Quinta wines, and the backbone of Taylor’s Late Bottled Vintage Port.


Taylor’s Vintage Port is made from grapes grown on the firms two properties Quinta de Vargellas and Quinta de Terra Feita. The stature of its Port is acknowledged by experts everywhere - and by the international wine auctions which regularly price Taylor’s Vintage Port ten to fifteen per cent above its rivals.

 

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Wine Information

The weather pattern during the growing and ripening seasons had a decisive effect on the character of the 2016 wines, with their elegance, refinement, crisp acidity and magnificent tannins. Spring was unusually wet, with heavy rain and relatively cool conditions throughout April and May. This had the benefit of restoring ground water levels, depleted by the previous year’s drought, and creating reserves for the hot summer that was to follow. However, the wet spring conditions also resulted in loss of fruit in some areas and a significant reduction in yields.  They also delayed the start of the ripening cycle.

Véraison started late, with the first signs visible around the second week of July. From early July, hot dry conditions prevailed until well into September.  In spite of the heat, maturation was even and gradual. Together with the late start to the cycle, this meant that, at the end of August, the crop was still far from ripe. Some rainfall in mid-September helped to round off the maturation.

Producers that delayed picking until after the rains were rewarded with perfect harvesting conditions, with cool nights helping to extend fermentation times and allow for gentle extraction. The first grapes were picked at Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas on 17th September, with the Pinhão Valley estates following on the 23rd and 26th respectively.

Deep purple, the aromas here are lifted, beautifully intense and concentrated, but restrained, with pink rose and lilac, holding so much back, the palate is very polished, and silky, with plenty of spicy peppercorns on the back, this has an impressive shape, the texture is very impressive, a calm density. There is a sense of chest-pouting, majesty and Taylor’s hall mark delicate spiced length. A beauty and definite buy.

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Vintage 2016

The 2016 harvest in the Douro brought perfectly-timed rain that turned a good year into a great one. Fortunately, despite a challenging growing season and a much adjusted and delayed picking schedule, those producers with excellent vineyard knowledge and confident decision-making, were rewarded with spectacular Vintage Ports.

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Tasting note

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Written Notes

Taylor's Vintage Port 2016 – Vibrant purples and inky blacks here. Bruised plum edges. This is ripe and generous, plush. The amazing purity and pristine fruit of the 2016s is all too evident here. Christmas cake and plum pudding. Cloves, blackberries, lovely soft kid leather, tobacco leaf, and quality dark chocolate. Exuberance but all in balance, this is seamless with micro-fine tannins, which are almost invisible. Still so young. There is good spirit, again in balance. Nothing is so much as an eyelash out of place. Elegance, purity, and incredible length with the intensity maintained throughout this ever-so-long finish. It has the length of a great Rutherglen muscat. Timeless. Tasted several times, and each time it just blew me away. After earlier tastings, my thoughts were “If young vintage Port can be better than this, I can’t imagine how. It has some serious competition, but it is my wine of the vintage.” No reason to feel any differently now. 100.

  • 100p

In 2016 Taylor's began picking in Vargellas on 17 September, followed by Pinhão Valley estate on 23 and 26 September. The 2016 Vintage Port has an aristocratic bouquet with tight wound aromas of blackberry, bilberry, crushed stone, black olive and a light, marine-tinged element, perhaps almost peat-like. The palate is just beautiful with fine, chiseled tannins and a perfect line of acidity. There is that almost "arching" structure one always seeks in a great Taylor’s with a gentle but insistent grip towards the finish. It is everything you really want from a Vintage Port. Production is 6,200 cases.

  • 97p

Taylor's Vintage Port 2016 / Deep purple, the aromas here are lifted, beautifully intense and concentrated, but restrained, with pink rose and lilac, holding so much back, the palate is very polished, and silky, with plenty of spicy peppercorns on the back, this has an impressive shape, the texture is very impressive, a calm density. There is a sense of chest-pouting, majesty and Taylor’s hall mark delicate spiced length. A beauty and definite buy. Will Gardener 96-98p

  • 97p
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Information

Origin

Porto, Douro

Inside Information

Taylor’s Vintage Port is one of the world’s great iconic wines. Made only in the very finest years – known as ‘declared’ vintages – Vintage Ports are blended from the best produce of the firm’s own estates of Quinta de Vargellas, Quinta de Terra Feita and more recently, Quinta do Junco. After each harvest, the tasting panel selects the finest Port wines from the three properties and these are then left to age for two winters in oak vats. In their second Spring, they are tasted again. If they are judged to be of exceptional quality, the Port wines of the three estates are blended together, Vargellas bringing structure, elegance and complexity to the wine and Terra Feita and Junco body, depth and powerful, concentrated fruit. At this stage it must be decided whether a Vintage Port is to be ‘declared’. For a declaration to be made, the Vintage Port blend must be of outstanding quality: austere in its youth, with tremendous depth of flavour and massive structure, capable of evolving over years, or decades into that quintessence of great Port, a mature Taylor’s Vintage. Historically Taylor’s has only declared about three Vintage years per decade. Taylor’s Vintage Ports are renowned for their massive structure and aromatic power, tempered by a characteristic understatement and restraint. The ultimate collector’s Port wines, Vintage Ports will age for decades in the cellar, slowly developing the elegance and harmony which are the hallmarks of a mature Taylor’s Vintage Port.

 

 

 

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