Graham’s 20 Year Old Tawny Port 75cl

Product Information

Both tawny and ruby ports could benefit from a slight chill, and white ports should be kept at fridge temperature. An outstanding Tawny Port Wine from Sandeman Port. A rich yet elegant combination of flavours - dried apricots, honey, nuts, spices, vanilla - creates an endlessly complex wine that unfolds smoothly and develops in the mouth.

To find the best port, the GHI’s panel of 10 WSET-trained experts and consumers tried 32 bottles – from white to ruby – from the leading supermarkets and big brands. Each was tasted blind to prevent brand bias, and they were looking for easy-drinking styles that would work well with a classic cheese board and desserts. White Port – Lauded for its bright, crisp character, white port offers refreshing notes of crisp apple, citrus and toasted nuts. Varying from bone dry to honey sweet, it can take a little trial and error to find your favourite – but trust us, it’s worth it. Ruby Port – Aged in steel or concrete tanks and then bottled, ruby port is renowned for its berry-forward flavour, pronounced spicing and mellow cocoa notes. It’s also the most highly produced and doesn’t tend to improve with age.Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. The 20-Year-Old Port Pipe Decanter is the next instalment, and promises to deliver something quite distinct from the previous entry, having spent a stint maturing in a barrel that once housed the Douro Valley’s famous fortified wine. Tawny Port – After being aged in oak barrels, tawny ports are further aged in bottles for periods such as ten, 20, 40 years, etc. The name comes from the tawny colour they develop over time and they tend to be very smooth and mellow, with flavours of fruit and nuts. They go well with cheeses and some puddings. Vintage Port – Made using grapes from a single, exceptional harvest, vintage port spends no longer than two years in the barrel before being bottled and tends to be fuller-bodied and deeper red than both ruby and tawny varieties. A rare breed, vintage ports tend to account for 3% of port production but are a class above (often, with the price tag to match). Tejo was formerly known as Ribatejo is known for good, everyday drinking wines in a range of styles from a wide range of permitted grapes. This region lies on either side of the River Tagus

Lisboa is a large, coastal region that runs north from Lisbon. Atlantic breezes help cool the vineyards and maintain the fresh acidity and aromatics in the mostly white wines. North of Bucelas, on the Atlantic west coast lies the strip of rolling countryside that contains nine separate DOCs under the umbrella name of Lisboa. This is Portugal's largest wine producing region in volume terms. One of the most graceful of wines, tawny port comes in a bewildering number of different guises, and has its own in-built hierarchy. The apogee, to my mind, is 20-year-old. It represents the epitome of balance and poise, combining the primacy of fine Douro fruit with the secondary complexity that comes from ageing in cask. But enough of the sexing up. For although they are totally different in style, I am not alone in ranking the finest 20-year-olds just as highly as the best vintage ports.Tawny Port – Aged in wooden casks, tawny ports tend to be sweeter and dominated by dried fruit and caramel aromas. Exposure to oxygen in the barrel imparts a moreish toasted nut quality, as well as the characteristic golden-brown hue. It depends on how long you anticipate aging it for! If something is left to sit for time, let it rest on its side away from direct sunlight, just as you would any fine wine. If you have an open bottle, you can store it at room temperature or in the fridge. Chilling a bottle will extend the lifespan — the cold slows down the oxidation process.

The real thrill of a great tawny comes from those wines bottled with an indication of age. Four are permitted: 10, 20, 30 or 40 years old. The component wines used in blending aged tawnies are mostly sourced from A/B grade vineyards in the Cima Corgo or Douro Superior, but there are a number of properties in the Baixo Corgo such as Quinta do Vallado and Quinta de Santa Eufemia which are making some fine aged tawnies of their own.Single Quinta Vintage Port – These ports are produced from a port house’s best vineyards in a great year, but may not be quite good enough for a declared Vintage Port. Great with cheese. Their Douro wines include the Altano range, Quinta do Ataíde in the Vilariça valley in the upper Douro, and flagship Chryseia, which along with Post Scriptum and Prazo de Roriz, are produced at Quinta de Roriz in a joint venture with Bruno Prats, ex of Château Cos d'Estournel in Bordeaux.

In Piedmont, as elsewhere, the heat wave shrivelled grapes and resulted in some unbalanced musts, although the oldest vines in Barolo and Barbaresco managed to withstand the weather and yield some exceptional wines. As for Tuscany, very difficult heat wave conditions were felt in all but the highest vineyards of Chianti Classico. For this reason, Tuscan 2003 wines tend to be fairly unbalanced.

Spirits

Crusted Port – A blend of outstanding young ports from two or three harvests, these are left to mature in the bottle, forming a “crust” (natural sediment) as they age. The Symington family is the dominant force in the Port trade. They own 2,400 hectares of land in the Douro Valley across 26 individual Quintas (Estates) where over 1,000 hectares are planted with vines. They own several well-known brands of Port, and since 1999 have been producing table wines from the Douro. As of 2017 they are also owners of an estate in the Portalegre sub-region to the north east of the Alentejo - their first outside the Douro - with the first wines released in 2019. Provided the wine has been well nurtured, a certain amount of bake can be a positive characteristic in a mature tawny. Many shippers use a small component of Douro-matured wine in their aged tawnies.