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Wine Description
The Story
Graham's has a reputation as a producer of outstanding Vintage Port for well over a century. These wines are renowned for their remarkable richness, concentration and firm tannic structure: a combination which yields impressive longevity. Graham's Vintage Ports consistently attain the highest ratings in tastings and invariably attract very high bids at fine wine auctions.
Vintage Ports are only made in years of exceptionally high quality harvests, which on average occur two or three times in a decade. The weather in the vineyards is the principal determining factor: conditions must be ideal throughout the growing season, as well as during the subsequent harvest.
Graham's extraordinary quality is the result of the unique characteristics of the five vineyards that contribute to the Vintage Port.
Graham's declares a Vintage Port only in exceptional years, perhaps three times in a decade, and in the intervening years may produce a Quinta Vintage Ports from Quinta dos Malvedos or Quinta do Tua. These Quinta Vintage Ports are aged in our cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia for 10 years or more after harvest, before being released to the market, ready for enjoyment.
Graham’s Vintage Ports are outstanding for their consistent quality and long life. James Suckling’s series of notes for old vintages tasted in 1990 confirm this – how many wines, after 40 or more years, are rated so highly and noted as “will improve with age” ?
Wine Information
The Graham’s 2020 Bicentenary Edition Vintage Port is an exceptional bottling. It is drawn from high altitude and north-west facing vines across three of Graham’s four estates – Quinta dos Malvedos, Quinta da Vila Velha, and Quinta do Tua. Typically, a Graham’s Vintage Port blend also comprises Quinta do Vale de Malhadas, a fourth property, far upriver in the remote Douro Superior.
2020 was the smallest vintage this century with exceptionally low yields. It was also a very early harvest, starting at Malvedos on September 1st (mid-September is closer to normal). Grape varieties which normally ripen sequentially in the Douro over a period of five
to six weeks (meaning they are mostly picked and vinified separately) were all stacked together ready for picking almost at the same time. Whilst this posed quite a few manpower and other logistical challenges, it also provided us with new opportunities. The Touriga Nacional and the Touriga Franca are usually at opposite ends of the ripening spectrum and habitually have at least a two-to-three-week interval between pickings. However, in 2020 both ripened in unison, and this meant we were able to co-ferment the Nacional and
the Franca, which resulted in some very interesting
and excellent wines.
We have opportunistically employed to advantage co-fermentations in the production of our Vintage Ports over the last decade or so, but it is almost unheard of to ferment the two Tourigas together. Also, particularly worthy of mention is the co-fermentation in 2020 of the highly prized Malvedos stone terraces blocks (consisting predominantly of Touriga Nacional) with Sousão. The inclusion of the entire production from the stone terraces, which has in recent years produced memorable, standalone The Stone Terraces Vintage Ports, has added incredible depth and intensity to this Graham’s 2020 Bicentenary Vintage Port
