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Taylor's declares 2018 Vintage Port
Taylor’s has announced that it will release a classic Vintage Port from the 2018 harvest. According to house custom, the declaration was made on 23rd April. Comments on the Taylor’s 2018 Vintage Port are as follows:
Adrian Bridge, Managing Director
Although a Classic declaration normally only happens about three times a decade, the exceptional run of years has meant that Taylor’s has been able to make a third in a row. This is very unusual but our principle is that we declare a Classic Vintage when the quality is there. This is dictated by the year, not by any other consideration. All our properties are farmed so that every grape has the potential to become Vintage Port. In 2018, overall conditions were excellent but in the Douro Superior they were exceptional. Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas produced outstanding wines. In view of the current economic situation, we will bottle in July as usual but will not release the wine until early 2021”.
David Guimaraens, Head Wine Maker
“The 2018 viticultural cycle had a challenging start but, as the harvest drew nearer, the conditions for making outstanding Vintage Port all fell into place. This was particularly true of the Douro Superior, which enjoyed the combination of intense summer heat and abundant ground water which often produces great Vintage Port. It gave us the excellent phenolic maturity typical of a hot ripening season but the elegance and fresh acidity we normally associate with cooler years. What stands out in the Taylor’s 2018 are its impressive, linear tannins, its depth of aroma and its wonderfully complex multi-layered fruit.”
Taylor's declares 2016 Vintage Port
Taylor’s has announced that it will release a classic Vintage Port from the 2016 harvest. According to house custom, the declaration was made on 23rd April, 2018. Comments on the Taylor’s 2016 Vintage Port are as follows:
Adrian Bridge, Managing Director
“The keynotes of the 2016 vintage are purity, refinement and structure. The Taylor’s 2016 is characteristically elegant and poised and underpinned by firm, superbly integrated tannins of exceptional quality. Yields at the 2016 harvest were relatively low and the wine is likely to be tightly allocated.”
David Guimaraens, Head Wine Maker
Commenting on the viticultural year: “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.” Commenting on the wine: “The hallmark of the Taylor 2016 is the very fine fruit quality and the magnificent tannins supported by a lively acidity.”
FLADGATE TO BUILD €100M TOURIST ATTRACTION IN PORTO
- Adrian Bridge, CEO of The Fladgate Partnership, is to start work next month on a €100 million visitor attraction called The World of Wine on the southern side of the Douro in Porto.
Occupying more than 30,000 m2, the planned facility will incorporate a museum on the history of Porto, a museum on the cork industry, a wine school, a slow food restaurant and events space, along with nine further restaurants, a retail area, and a fashion and design museum to celebrate the textile industry of northern Portugal. Speaking to the drinks business last month in Porto about the project, Bridge said that he would start preparing the site in November, and expected to open The World of Wine in 2020.
He also said that “there would be no problem raising funds” for the project, which he said would cost between €80m and €100m, explaining that there were government funds for regeneration, along with European Commission funds that offered as much as 20 years without any interest.
In terms of visitors, Bridge told db that he was conservatively forecasting that The World of Wine would attract one million visitors annually, but said that he believed the attraction would easily exceed such a number.
“Last year visitors to Port cellars exceeded one million for the first time, and there were 6m people through Porto’s airport, and ‘bed nights’ in the city totalled 1.7m, and hotel revenues have increased by 50% in the last four years,” he said, highlighting the expanding tourism industry in Porto, and justifying his forecasted 1m visitors to The World of Wine.
Furthermore, he said that tourists were coming to the city despite the fact that “there is no major visitor attraction – the only big buildings in the city are churches, or owned by the church.”
The World of Wine will be developed on a site in Vila Nova de Gaia on the southern banks of the river Douro on land owned by The Fladgate Partnership that is currently filled with empty warehouses just beneath the group’s 83-room hotel called The Yeatman.
“We have a load of warehouses that are incredibly well located and not used for ageing Port anymore because we have put that in the Douro,” said Bridge, referring to the group’s modern winery and ageing facility at Quinta da Nogueira in the Douro.
“Organising the Port business has been our primary objective and in doing that we have freed up a lot of land,” he added.
“We could sell the warehouses but we don’t want a property developer to put something ugly on our doorstep,” he said, talking about the environs of The Yeatman luxury hotel.
“And I would rather we told the story of Port,” he stated.
Concluding he said, “Port is our core business but tourism is synergistic… in today’s world the consumer is knocking on our door, so it makes huge sense to be welcoming them here, and you can make a connection with them that you will never make through a PowerPoint presentation on the other side of the world.”
Adrian Bridge is CEO of The Fladgate Partnership, which owns the Taylor’s, Fonseca and Croft Port houses, as well as CEO of The Yeatman, a luxury hotel in Porto containing the city’s only Michelin-starred restaurant.
Taylor’s Single Harvest 1863, drawn from the firm’s collection of very rare and valuable cask aged Ports, represents a unique piece of wine history. Like a time capsule, it offers a fascinating glimpse into a distant past.
The harvest of 1863 was one of the finest of the nineteenth century and the last great Port vintage before Phylloxera spread throughout the Douro Valley. Matured for over a century and a half in oak casks, the Taylor’s Single Harvest 1863 has achieved an exceptional level of density and complexity while displaying a vitality and freshness remarkable in a wine of this age. In addition, the cool and tranquil environment of the Port lodges in Oporto has allowed the wine to retain its harmony and balance.
The Taylor’s Single Harvest 1863 is presented in a bespoke crystal decanter, specially produced in Italy, with an individually fitted glass stopper engraved and polished by hand in Scotland. The decanter is displayed in a superb luxury box finished in maple burl veneer. Each box contains a certificate individually signed by Taylor’s Managing Director, Adrian Bridge.
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