WEEKEND WINE PICKS
Taylor Fladgate Late Bottled Vintage Porto 2012, Douro Valley, Portugal
$14.99 | 89/100
UPC:
5013626111277
Dried tobacco, dried orange, fig, quince paste through this round, but structured LBV. More so than last year, the 2012 has a definite grippy, gritty frame with firm sides containing the caramelized, ripe, burnished orange-cherry fruit. The finish lingers with a savoury nut shell note. This is drawn from Taylor estates in Cima Corgo and Douro Superior, and is ready for drinking now while you wait a decade or a few.
Taylor Fladgate 10-Year-Old Tawny, Douro Valley, Portugal $39.99 | 93/100
UPC:
5013626111284
Taylor’s 10-Year-Old Tawny Port is dessert in a bottle. Don’t let its pale, tawny colour fool you. This wine is bigger than it looks. After spending an average of 10 years in wood, the purple hues are gone and in exchange you get a mellow elegant sophisticated drink chock full of raisins, nuts and chocolate but with lively acidity and a caramel/honey finish. Serve slightly chilled.
Taylor Fladgate Quinta de Vargellas 2015, Douro Valley, Portugal $75.99 | 92/100
UPC:
5013626114094
In the years when the classic Taylor port is not made it is replaced by a “single quinta” port, made exactly as Taylor’s “vintage” other than the use of fruit is restricted to the individual Vargellas property. It was dry in 2015, the fruit was healthy, the load was light, balanced by grape bunches without raisins. Expect the floral jasmine notes of Vargellas with bits of pipe smoke, licorice, and black cherry jam. The attack is round but with firm tannins and savoury, intense sweet black cherry fruit. The finish is long with fine minerality and more youthful fruit flecked with figs and walnut notes. An excellent single-quinta port that will easily age a decade, and beyond.
Taylor Fladgate Very Old Single Harvest Port 1965, Douro Valley, Portugal
$255.99 | 95/100
UPC:
5013626114988
Like its 1964 predecessor, this 1965 Colheita, single vintage tawny is part of the ongoing series (now up to 1967) of releases featuring 50-yearold Taylor Colheitas. A field blend with distinction that offers up long slippery silky textures underlying its mahogany, molasses, caramel aromas and toffee, ginger, walnut/ vanilla fig flavours. You are sipping history, and should 1965 have special meaning at your house, this is a great wine to celebrate with. It’s ready to drink and will not change a lot in the cellar over the next decade or two.
Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port 2000, Douro Valley, Portugal $299.99 | 93/100
UPC:
05013626113141
Tasted several times, this Taylor continues to do what it does best: age in the bottle. After 18 years you are getting a port that is just settling into its cool, calm and sophisticated style in what has become a fine vintage. It’s less aromatic and drier than other years, but it still has that pretty mix of spice, licorice, black fruit, and molasses. The palate is long and unrelenting, delivering other red fruits with a touch of chocolate. Linear, well-balanced and harmonious this is a bottle of history now. A magnum at $459.99 a bottle will hold through 2100.