Taylor’s managing director, Adrian Bridge, said: “This is a year in which overall conditions were exceptional in the Douro Superior. As Taylor’s is the only one of our companies with extensive land holdings in this part of the Douro, it has been able to make a Classic. All our properties are always farmed so that every grape has the potential of being made into Vintage Port.”
Head winemaker, David Guimaraens, added: “The Douro Superior enjoyed the combination of abundant ground water and hot summer weather which often produces great Vintage Port. It has given us the excellent phenolic maturity typical of a hot ripening season but the fine multi-layered fruit, fresh acidity we normally see in cooler years.”
Due to the economic situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the port will be bottled in July but not on sale until early 2021.
Bridge added: “Although a Classic declaration normally only happens about three times a decade, the exceptional run of years has meant that Taylor’s is able to make a third in a row. This is very unusual but our principle is that we only declare a Classic Vintage when the quality is there and this is dictated by the year, not by any other consideration.”
Fonseca will also release a 2018 Guimaraens Vintage Port, the first bottling under the Guimaraens label since 2015, while Croft will release a 2018 single-quinta Vintage Port from its Quinta da Roêda estate.
