Wine Reviews

This is coming around beautifully now with dark plums, orange peel, chocolate and graphite undertones. It’s full-bodied with fine and chewy tannins and a long finish. A very fresh and elegant Taylor for this hot vintage, which slightly surprised me from the beginning.

This midnight purple colored Vintage Port opens with a faint dried cigar leaf and gentle cherry bouquet with hints of plum, date, and black licorice. On the palate, this wine is balanced and full bodied with medium plus acidity. The flavor profile is red currant, graphite, and raisin blend with hints of clove, tar, and black tea.

This is an exceptional vintage, most unusually the third in a row from this producer. Intensely perfumed, richly structured with dark-black fruits, concentrated tannins, it is set for seriously long-term aging. The power of the wine, based around the producer’s Quinta da Vargellas, is magnificent.

The 2018 Vintage Port is a field blend aged for approximately 18 months in very old and large wooden vats. It comes in with 100 grams of residual sugar. This is the third straight declaration (2016, 2017 and this 2018) of a classic Vintage Port for Taylor’s. Aromatic and expressive, this adds a big bang for a finish that reminds you that it is, indeed, Taylor’s. After opening it on the first day tasted, it tightened fast and showed the structure I like to see in serious Ports. It has that classic flavor profile as well and shows fine concentration.

Remarkably harmonious already, with a beautiful display of unadulterated blueberry, blackberry and plum sauce flavors that fan out, while anise, ganache and cassis accents fill in. So lush and seductive through the finish.