Taylor Fladgate Very Old Single Harvest Port 1964
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I allowed my glass of 1964 Taylor’s Very Old Single Harvest Port a couple of hours to open up in the glass, monitoring its evolution along the way. It is not a shy or retiring Port. Clear mahogany in color with a slight green tinge on the rim, the nose races out of the blocks like a young terrier let free in the garden, with intense aromas of grilled walnut, smoke, brown sugar, hints of caramel and a fug of alcohol that ebbs with time. The palate is smooth and honeyed on the entry, a very seductive Port wine, quite sumptuous in style, but with enough volatile lift to maintain fieriness toward the viscous finish. I speculate that had the 1963s not been so prodigious, Taylor Fladgate would have elected to follow their 1960 declaration with a 1964. That is all in the past. It is a delicious Vintage Port firing on all cylinders, ready to drink and enjoy now rather than cellar.
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Wine Enthusiast
Properly old gold in color, this is a wine from a single year, aged in casks. It's poised between amazing fruit and a wonderful velvet texture that is shot through with acidity. A feeling of lightness comes from the acidity that gives great freshness as well as complex flavors. It's ready to drink.
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Wine Spectator
Smooth, spicy and still fresh, with a subtly unfolding array of candied ginger, dried apple, citrus zest and marzipan flavors supported by bright acidity. Finishes with hints of anise and juniper.
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Port is a sweet, fortified wine with numerous styles: Ruby, Tawny, Vintage, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), White, Colheita, and a few unusual others. It is blended from from the most important red grapes of the Douro Valley, based primarily on Touriga Nacional with over 80 other varieties approved for use. Most Ports are best served slightly chilled at around 55-65°F.
Best known for intense, impressive and age-worthy fortified wines, Portugal relies almost exclusively on its many indigenous grape varieties. Bordering Spain to its north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean on its west and south coasts, this is a land where tradition reigns supreme, due to its relative geographical and, for much of the 20th century, political isolation. A long and narrow but small country, Portugal claims considerable diversity in climate and wine styles, with milder weather in the north and significantly more rainfall near the coast.
While Port (named after its city of Oporto on the Atlantic Coast at the end of the Douro Valley), made Portugal famous, Portugal is also an excellent source of dry red and white Portuguese wines of various styles.
The Douro Valley produces full-bodied and concentrated dry red Portuguese wines made from the same set of grape varieties used for Port, which include Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (Spain’s Tempranillo), Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca and Tinto Cão, among a long list of others in minor proportions.
Other dry Portuguese wines include the tart, slightly effervescent Vinho Verde white wine, made in the north, and the bright, elegant reds and whites of the Dão as well as the bold, and fruit-driven reds and whites of the southern, Alentejo.
The nation’s other important fortified wine, Madeira, is produced on the eponymous island off the North African coast.