Taylors Vintage Port 2017

Taylor's Vintage Port, 2017 

Grapes: A blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinto Cão, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca from Quinta de Vargellas (the ‘backbone’) as well as from Terra Feita and Junco 

Deep purple black with a narrow magenta rim. High notes of pure, intense woodland fruit with lively accents of green apple, fresh plum and raspberry. Around this core of bright, singing fruit is a heady aura of gumcistus and wine herbs. On a deeper register, exotic notes of cedarwood and jasmine provide an additional dimension of complexity. The wine has an attractive leanness and muscularity with sinewy, linear tannins that integrate seamlessly into the mid palate and then re-emerge to hold the wine in a confident grip. Energised by a racy acidity, the intense berry flavours continue to build into the long finish. Although the keynotes are refinement and poise, the wine displays the restrained vigour and stamina that are the hallmarks of the Taylor style.

Critics' Tasting Notes:

"Deep purple. Dark-fruited, dusky, smoky, full of blackberry and blueberry fruit. Like a bottomless well of fruit, so deep and smooth. Power and polish to the densely layered but welcoming tannins, the power hidden by the fruit depth. As it opens on the nose, there’s a more wild elderberry character and more chocolate on the finish. Amazing length, the tannins creating a paradoxically dry, savoury finish. Even with all this exceptional fruit, it seems more corseted on the palate than some in this vintage. Fladgate MD Adrian Bridge suggested this wine had an aroma of orange blossom and he is right, but I am not sure I would never have identified it without his prompt."

18.5/20 points, Julia Harding MW, JANCISROBINSON.COM, June 2019

"The 2017 Vintage Port is a field blend aged for approximately 20 months in wood. It comes in with 100 grams of residual sugar. Rich, concentrated and often sensational, this is well structured, even better in its fruit profile. While the fruit is terrific, it is also wonderfully fresh. This is arguably a great Taylor's, but it still needs to prove its final case in the cellar. I don't think that will be a problem. As I said when I first saw it, it effortlessly combines brilliant fruit and structure. It does everything right, and it is a formidable competitor to its Vinha Velha sibling in this report. And at half the price."

99/100 points, Mark Squires, WINE ADVOCATE, August 2022