To find the origins of Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman, one must go back over three centuries, to the 1670s, when Job Bearsley, an English merchant, established what is today that respected firm at Viana, in the Minho. Bearsley's initial activities were in the wool trade, and the "4XX" logo, originally his woolmark, was branded on bales of wool, and later, casks of port wine, for shipment. The firm was officially founded in 1692; Bearsley thereafter moved his offices to Oporto; this date places Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman as one of Oporto's oldest port houses.

Of Bearsley's five sons, Peter, Charles, Bartholomew, Francis and William, two were instrumental in the growth of the firm's wine trade. In the beginning years of the 1700s, Peter was the first Englishman to venture into the primitive reaches of the Upper Douro to purchase wines. In 1744, Bartholomew acquired the Lugar das Lages, located at Salgueiral close to the old town of Regua, the first British-owned property in the Douro and still among Taylor, Fladgate's operative holdings. Its Casa dos Alambiques, constructed in the 18th century, still stands. The Bearsley family remained connected with the firm until 1806, by which time it had become a partnership; in point of fact, during the first century and a half of its existence, until 1844, the company name changed 21 times as a function of change in partners or ownership.

In 1808, Joseph Camo, the only American ever to accede to partnership in a port house, joined the firm. His political neutrality during the Peninsular Wars of 1809 between the French and the British allowed the firm to continue operating when members of the British firms had temporarily retreated to England. At the time, Napoleon had taken the city of Oporto, and the Casa dos Alambiques served as a field hospital for the Duke of Wellington's troops under General Beresford, who later led them on Bordeaux. Camo's affiliation with the firm ended in 1813. Joseph Taylor joined the firm in 1816, followed in 1837 by John Fladgate, a London wine merchant later made Baron by the King of Portugal.

The present name of Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman was adopted in 1844 when Morgan Yeatman, also a wine merchant from Dorchester and long-standing client of Taylor, Fladgate became a partner; the Yeatman family is today the principal partner. In 1949, Taylor, Fladgate's shareholders acquired Fonseca Guimaraens Vinhos, producer of Fonseca ports, affiliating the two companies. The Guimaraens family had been making port wines under that name since Manuel Pedro Guimaraens purchased the firm of Fonseca, Monteiro and Company in 1822.

Taylor, Fladgate's 20th century era is filled with "firsts." The firm was the first to market a drier- style white port, called "Chip Dry White", in the 1930s; Taylor Fladgate also authored "Late Bottled Vintage", or "LBV" port, first released as "Vintage Reserve" in 1955. The first LBV as such, from the 1965 vintage, was released in 1969. Most other houses have since followed suit, but Taylor, Fladgate remains the strongest label in this category. Another innovation later adopted by several houses was the firm's creation of a "single-quinta" or single-vineyard, vintage-dated port. Though records indicate a "Quinta de Vargellas" port of vintage date was marketed in London in between 1820 and 1829, (surely the first such wine ever produced), Taylor Fladgate was first to resume release of a single-quinta port with the 1958 Vargellas, released in 1968.

If the Casa dos Alambiques at Lugar das Lages, now a modern winery, is Taylor Fladgate's oldest holding, their famed Quinta de Vargellas is by far the most important. This spectacular, "A"-rated, 255-acre property, in the far reaches of the Upper Douro barely 25 miles from the Spanish border, is the firm's crown jewel.

Vargellas was originally, in the early 1800s, three separate properties. The upper portion, the Quinta do Vale, was owned by Dona Antònia Ferreria of the port house of the same name. The middle portion, the Quinta de Vargellas-do-Meio, belonged to the house of Carvalhos; documents substantiate that an 1808 vintage wine, possibly among those which surfaced in London in the 1820s mentioned above, was produced from this vineyard. The lower portion, known by the several names of Quinta de Vargellas-de-Baixo, Quinta de Galega and Quinta do Brito, was owned by Antonio Brito e Cunha until he was hanged in Oporto in 1829 for his political activities. Sometime between 1850 and 1890, the vineyards were consolidated into a single property. In 1893, on the heels of the arrival of phylloxera epidemic, Taylor Fladgate purchased Vargellas in a state of near-ruin; its yield in that year was barely one twentieth of current production. Today, 103 acres of vines are planted on its steep, northeast-facing terraced slopes descending precipitously to the banks of the Douro, with small parcels gradually added each year. The Quinta de Vargellas is the backbone of Taylor, Fladgate's declared vintage ports, lending them consistency and defining their style. In the best undeclared years, Quinta de Vargellas stands on its own as a single-quinta vintage port.

Taylor, Fladgate's other vineyard is the 217-acre Quinta de Terra Feita, on the west bank of the Pinhão River and also "A" rated; this quinta contributes to the vintage port in declared years. Long an important source of vintage-quality wines for Taylor, Fladgate, the firm purchased Terra Feita in 1974. At the time neglected and with negligible production, the vineyard has been expanded, now with 126 acres of vines. Production has increased nearly 40-fold since 1974.

There are 48 grape varieties authorized in the Douro to produce port wine. Of these, five are considered to be the great classic port vines: the Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Cão and Tinta Barrocca. Only the Tinta Roriz, known as Tempranillo in Rioja, is not native to Portugal. Since the 1920s, Taylor, Fladgate has used "batch" planting, or planting specific varieties in parcels best suited to each, in their quintas, apportioned as follows:

Location	QUINTA DE VARGELLAS	QUINTA DE TERRA FEITA	TOTAL
Area District Parish Total Area (Ha) Planted Area (Ha) Vines in production	Douro Superior San João da Pesqueira Vale de Figueira 101 41 165,000	Cima Corgo Alijó Vale de Mendiz 88 51 216,000	189 92 381,000
Varieties planted
* Touriga Nacional * Touriga Francesa * Tinta Roriz * Tinta Cãõ * Tinta Barroca * Others	18% 26% 23% 1% 5% 27%	14% 29% 22% 3% 11% 21%	76% 24%
Average Production
* Must (Hl) * Port (Hl)	990 *1,238	1,300 *1,625	2,229 *2,863
* increase accounted for by addition of fortifying spirit.

This production represents roughly 24 hectolitres of must per hectare (or approximately 1.33 tons per acre). When compared to a yield of 35 or 40 hectolitres per hectare customarily achieved in Bordeaux's finest classified growths or Burgundy's grands crus, production of port from these vineyards is very restricted indeed. Destined almost exclusively for Taylor, Fladgate's declared vintage, Vargellas and aged tawny ports, wines from the Quintas of Vargellas and Terra Feita supply only about 14 percent of the company's total requirements each harvest. The balance is supplied by vineyards in the superior growing areas of the Douro under long-term agreement to Taylor, Fladgate. These wines are used principally in Taylor's young wood and vintage character ports.

Taylor, Fladgate is one of the handful of first-quality port houses to retain the use of "lagares" or granite treading tanks, in their production process. Though now reserved, due to its highly labor- intensive nature, for the finest produce of the company's own vineyards only, the process of foot- treading the grapes has never quite been equalled by mechanized means in its ability to extract maximum color and intensity from the fruit. The pristine, blue and white tile treading room at Vargellas during the vintage is a timeless scene. In each lagar, two dozen workers accompanied by an accordion, begin the "corte", which breaks the berries, initiates the extraction process and eventually sets off the fermentation, which may take up to twelve hours to commence. The treading continues in shifts until the fermentation is well under way. It will be two to three days before the fermentation has progressed to five to six percent alcohol by volume, the point when it is arrested by fortification. The new port is drawn out of the lagares into a common tank with one-quarter its volume of clear grape brandy and left to rest for the winter.

The January after the harvest, when the young port has naturally fallen clear over the cold winter months, Taylor, Fladgate conducts a complete technical and organoleptic analysis, independent from the legal grading done by the Port Wine Institute, to classify its wines according to their quality and potential, lighter wines will be used for the young wood ports; fuller, more concentrated wines for vintage character and late-bottled vintage ports; and exceptionally intense, outstanding quality wines will be earmarked "vintage potential." The best of these latter will become vintage wines if, two years thereafter, a vintage is declared; if not, they will begin a long sojourn in cask to eventually be blended as tawny ports of age.

Taylor, Fladgate and Yeatman produces a complete portfolio of superb wood and vintage ports including Chip Dry, a full bodied, aromatic white port; Special Ruby and Special Tawny, fresh, forward wood ports in the elegant Taylor Style; First Estate, named for the Lugar das Lages, a peppery, black-fruited vintage character wine; Late-Bottled Vintage, the firm's standard-bearer in which category it remains unsurpassed; a full range of Tawny Ports of Age characterized by their sublime richness and unmistakable Taylor nose; Quinta de Vargellas Vintage Port, produced in undeclared years; and Taylor Vintage Port, the port by which all others are judged, in quality and price: "The Latour of Ports."

Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman is today guided by Mr. Alistair Robertson, Managing Director, who assumed that position in 1967 after the death of his uncle, Richard Yeatman, in the summer of 1966. Mr. Huyshe Bower, cousin of Richard Yeatman, joined the firm in 1959; initially responsible for production, in 1967 he was appointed Director of Sales, and has to his credit the presence of Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman ports in every major market in the world. The firm's third partner, Mr. Bruce Guimaraens, joined the firm in 1958, and is responsible for vineyard management at Vargellas and Terra Feita as well as at the Fonseca quintas, and production of all wines. The Taylor, Fladgate and Fonseca productions are kept strictly separate, from source of grapes through commercialization, to preserve the individual house style and market position of each label's portfolio.