Douro Boys – Very Old Ports: Vintage, Colheita and Tawny
The Douro Boys celebrated their twentieth anniversary in April 2023 with a tasting of vintage, tawny and colheita Ports dating back to 1863. Representatives from five producers came together in 2003 to form Douro Boys: Quinta do Vallado, Niepoort, Quinta do Crasto, Van Zellers & Co and Quinta do Vale Meão. They are a remarkable organisation in that they demonstrate how by coming together they can help to promote both themselves and the Douro region. Other producers can be thankful for all the work that have done promoting the Douro worldwide over the last two decades.
This tasting draws on some of their oldest and most prestigious Port wines. Although many of the producers have a lineage that goes back for centuries, many of the wines here have been bought in from other small growers and stockholders in the Douro region. Wines that are either blends or not officially registered as colheitas are marketed as ‘Very Old Tawny’. One or two of the wines could be described as ‘extreme’; a word that was used more than once during the tasting. Quinta do Vale Meão included their first vintage Port and are to be respected for building up their own stock of wines to release aged tawny and colheita Ports in future.
An extensive tasting of the Douro Boys’ red and white wines can be found in the relevant section of this website.
As ever, the wines below are listed in the order they were tasted:
Quinta do Vale Meão, Vintage 2000 ****
This family-owned estate in the Douro Superior gained its independence (from Ferreira) in 1999 and this is their first vintage Port: good youthful colour; ripe but restrained berry and dark chocolate fruit both on the nose and on the palate, firm and not too sweet in style with a long, linear finish. Just at the start of a long and promising drinking life. 17
Quinta do Crasto, Vintage 1999 ***
A field blend made from two of the best-known, old vine plots on the estate, Vinha Maria Teresa and Vinha da Ponte, that now produce their own legendary unfortified Douro wines. By their own admission 1999 was not an easy year. It rained heavily during the harvest and they did well to produce this wine: mid-deep youthful hues; not giving away much on the nose, possibly a bit hollow; fresh peppery fruit on the palate, spicy and seemingly balanced mid-palate, cherry stone fruit, leading to a long, still fresh but rather lean finish. 15.5
Van Zellers 30 Year Old Tawny ****
The company markets itself as ‘the oldest wine family’ / ‘since 1620’ but is very much an old company with a new life having been reformed by Cristiano Van Zeller in 2006 as ‘a blank sheet of paper’. It is now building up stock, buying in and blending old wines like this 30 Year Old bottled in February 2023: lovely amber-tawny colour; rich barley sugar and butterscotch aromas; very smooth and rich yet fresh and spicy with a touch of vestigial tannin, a touch of medicinal sweetness towards the finish but well balanced overall. 17
Quinta do Crasto Colheita 1997 (bottled 2015) ***
Bright and still ruby-ish in colour with a tawny rim; lifted and a touch high toned on the nose, slightly casky; sweet, rich milk chocolate style with a spike of citrus fruit acidity, nicely balanced and not too sweet with a savoury-casky finish. 16
Quinta do Vallado 50 Year Old Tawny Port ****/*****
Lovely deep mid-amber/tawny colour; complex leathery aromas with obvious maturity and age; rich yet still very fresh with toffee complexity mid-palate leading to a leathery-savoury finish. Nicely poised and not over-balanced by excess sweetness. Very fine old tawny. 18.5
Quinta do Vallado, Very Old Tawny ****
A blend of wines ranging from 40 to 150 years in age: deep mahogany centre with a thin tawny-green rim; lifted and toasted on the nose with a touch of roasted coffee bean complexity; rich, intensely sweet savoury-casky flavours with vestigial dusty tannins and heady sweetness on the finish, long, luscious and just verging on lascivious (if I can say that). I just have! 17.5
Van Zeller’s 1940 Colheita White Port (bottled September 2022) ***
Pale amber/tawny in colour; distinctly lifted with a smoky-casky character on the nose and vestigial dried apricot fruit; rich yet leathery mature character, sweet and spicy apricot fruit, some freshness mid-palate, drying on the finish. 16
Quinta do Crasto Honore, Very Old Tawny Port (bottled in 2015)
Crasto used to belong to the Port shipper Constantino and this draws on stock aged at the quinta that is over 100 years old: deep garnet-mahogany colour (Port starts to regain colour in cask after 60 years or so), distinctly high toned and lifted on the nose with a very strange character that I can only characterise as ‘wild’; intensely sweet, singed/stewed fruit, unctuous (with over 300 g/l residual sugar) and to my mind unbalanced. A wine to admire for its age and pedigree but it is not one that I particularly want to drink. Difficult to award a mark.
Quinta do Vallado ABF 1888 (bottled in 2016) ****
‘ABF’ stands for António Bernardo Ferreira, owner of Vallado in the 19th century, however this wine had been bought in from another property in the Baixo Corgo and bottled in April 2023. Deep garnet with a thin tawny rim; distinctly lifted on the nose but with underlying dusky fruit; flavours of intensely sweet, baked fruit compote, spiced up but with freshness and verve on the finish. 17
Van Zellers Very Old Tawny (bottled in April 2023)
An unregistered wine from 1888, possibly white according to Cristiano Van Zeller: deep hue with quite high VA, ‘vinagrinho’ but just on the edge if you get my meaning; intensely sweet, rather leathery fruit, rich with a touch of molasses and a rather over-sweet medicinal finish. In my opinion this is another wine to admire rather than drink – another one that is hard to award a mark to. I think that this is a wine that might reasonably described as ‘extreme’!
Van Zellers Very Old Tawny (bottled April 2023) ****
Another unregistered wine this time dating from 1860 and bought in from a quinta in the Baixo Corgo: deep mahogany in colour; singed molasses on the nose intensely rich but rather gorgeous with caramelised marmalade fruit, long and rather lovely with a toffee and butterscotch finish. 17.5
Niepoort VV Tawny Port (bottled in 2012) *****
Blended from wines aged by Niepoort in Vila Nova de Gaia and based on a wine from 1863 with the youngest wine in the blend being approximately 80 years old. This wine was bottled to celebrate the company’s 170th anniversary: lovely, mid-deep amber/tawny colour; gently lifted and scented on the nose with milk chocolate richness combined with delicacy and finesse; soft and seductive with creamy richness mid-palate, rather delicious with lightness and delicacy, above all not too sweet! Very fine and elegant. Outstanding old tawny. 19
Niepoort VV Tawny *****
From an earlier bottling, bottled over 50 years ago and still based on the 1863: very similar amber/tawny in hue; rich, lifted toffee aromas, more subdued than from the more recent bottling, beautifully melded, smooth and seamless, soft, creamy yet very precise and beautifully poised on the finish. Living proof that an old, blended tawny will keep in bottle if properly cellared. 19.5
Quinta do Vallado Tributa 1866 (bottled in 2012) ****
Deep mahogany red with a distinctly lifted and rather balsamic character on the nose; intensely rich and concentrated with fruit compote the centre, slightly unctuous and medicinal towards the finish but still retaining some freshness and grace overall. 17
Niepoort Very Old Tawny (bottled in 1992) *****
A wine from 1863 that aged in pipe until 1970 and spent a further 22 years in glass demijohns before being bottled in 1992. This wine holds the record as the most expensive Port ever sold having fetched 134,000 US Dollars at auction in Hong Kong for a Lalique demijohn in 2019. Lovely amber-mahogany colour; still wonderfully fresh on the nose with a subtle toffee/caramel character and delicate creamy fruit backed by a touch of citrus, long, sweet, this just stops short of being unctuous on the finish. Beautifully, nay, perfectly poised. 19.5
