1995 | Taylor Fladgate | Quinta de Vargellas Vintage Port

Sports a brilliant magenta, purple color and intense aromas of plums and berries with hints of flowers. It's medium- to full-bodied, with a chunky, velvety-tannin mouthfeel and a long aftertaste of chocolate and fruit.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The 1995 Quinta de Vargellas Vinha Velha Vintage Port is a typical field blend aged in used French oak vats. It comes in with 93 grams per liter of residual sugar. This was the debut vintage of the Vinha Velha, and it leads off the vertical this issue. Drinking perfectly now, this has chocolate and caramel, seeming very much like a gentle, mature and harmonious Port, but it has neither profound complexity nor a lot of power. It is, however, sensual and appealing, wonderful to drink now. It likely won't get better at this point, but I was pleased to see it expand in the glass and improve even by my last taste. I'd want to drink this now, personally. Adrian Bridge suggested it had reached its mature plateau, and I agree. It will hold on that plateau reasonably well, perhaps longer than anticipated, depending on how you like them. Of course, most wines, especially Ports, don't fall off the table. It has plenty of life left in a literal sense. When it declines, the decline will be slow and long.

• Wine Cellar: Saturated ruby. Brooding blueberry, cassis, licorice and mineral nose complicated by a whiff of smoked meat; easy to pick out as Taylor in a blind grouping. Very concentrated, palate-saturating black cherry and black raspberry flavor. Thick and round but vibrant and delineated. Impressive extract. Explosive finishing fruit goes on and on. A very powerful port, but much more accessible early than a classic vintage Taylor.

Producer Information

Taylor Fladgate (often referred to as "Taylor's") is one of the most important Port houses in the Douro region of northern Portugal. Taylor's is notable for its wide range of traditional ports, from vintage expressions to tawny ports of various ages, and also for its creation of the Late Bottled Vintage, or LBV, style. The genesis of the company began 1692 when English wine merchant Job Bearsley arrived in Portugal, although it would be many years and owners before it came to be known as Taylor's. Bearsley initially traded in red Portuguese wine from the northwest of the country, and in 1744, under his grandson Bartholomew, the company became the first British wine merchant to buy a property in the Douro. Taylor's changed hands often during the 19th and 20th Centuries, coming under control of both Joseph Taylor and John Fladgate, who gave the company its name. Taylor's survived to rebuild after phylloxera ravaged vineyards across Europe at the end of the 19th Century. It came to the Yeatman family at the beginning of the 20th Century, and they have been the proprietors since. In the 1960s, Alistair Robertson took the reins and began to focus on finding new markets in Asia and North America, rather than just relying on Britain. He also created the first Late Bottled Vintage port, which has since become a mainstay of the industry. It was first released with the 1970 vintage and was an instant success. Unlike many other houses, which include a range of dry red wines in their portfolios, Taylor's only makes Port. The portfolio includes a series of bottle- and wood-aged Ports including vintage, LBV, single-harvest and white Port. While best-known among winelovers for its single-vintage releases, Taylor's also boasts two single-estate offerings: the highly-regarded Quinta de Vargellas and the Quinta de Terra Feita.

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