Wine Reviews

Return to the Historic Port Wine Cellar District via the Luís I Bridge—one of six spanning the river—to tour the barrel aging
rooms at renowned port producer Taylor Fladgate. Taste numerous vintages, among them the rare 150-year-old Scion Port.

Scion from The Fladgate Partnership, a pre-phylloxera Tawny Port that David Guimaraens discovered in the cellars of a family that had sold wines to the firm for generations. It was a two-barrel lot that proved to be at least 150 years old, carefully tended and still fresh. The Fladgate Partnership agreed to buy it and Guimaraens bottled in it hand-blown Italian crystal decanters, nested in a wooden box designed after a 19th century instrument case.

A Scion from Heaven

Tasting Scion: A Piece of History Taylor Fladgate’s pre-phylloxera 1855 port. It’s rare to taste a wine that is over a century old. Rarer still is it to taste one that has been kept in the same place for 150 years and that comes from pre-phylloxera vines. Scion is remarkable not only for its history but for its exquisite flavors on the nose and palate. It had racy acidity and an amazing array of spice, fruit, floral and oak notes.

Once in a lifetime you have a chance to taste history. I was lucky enough recently to do just that.