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Quinta de Vargellas Vintage Port, Taylors 2013

Published by

Christian Gott – An Island Chef

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Port is made by fortifying wine with a spirit similar to brandy called ‘ aguardente ’ or fiery water, this is done mid-fermentation to leave a high level of residual sugar. Port can be made from over fifty types of grapes including several local grape varieties such as Port grapes Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Barroca, and Tinta Cão. Port can only be made in vineyards around the Douro River valley. It is said that the English drink port in a snub to Napoleon, but it became increasingly popular in the 17th century as the duty on French wines was increasingly prohibitive.

Quinta de Vargellas Vintage Port 2013

What is a single Quinta vintage?

There are several types of Port including white and the relatively new Rose port, which like rose wine is made with red grape varieties, but spends less contact time with the skins. Port styles can be a little confusing with Ruby as the most commonly available right through to vintage port which is only released from an exceptional year’s harvest. Vintage Port makes up around two percent of port production and is only partially aged in barrels but can be left to bottle age for several decades. A single quinta vintage is a step down from a full vintage made from a producer’s premier vineyards. It is produced to be enjoyed younger, typically within five to seven years.

Quinta de Vargellas Vintage Port 2013

Quinta de Vargellas Vintage Port is made by Taylor’s, one of the most famous port producers established in 1692. Located in the hilly, eastern Douro valley it is recognised as one of the great port vineyards. This wine is a deep purple-red colour with lots of stewed black fruits on the nose. Right now, it’s fresh and fruity to drink with undercurrents of dried fruits and hints of coffee and molasses. Deliciously smooth and packed with blackberry fruit.

Grape variety                          Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Francêsca,

                                                          and Tinta Barroca

Country of origin                  Portugal

Region                                          Eastern Douro Valley

Vintage                                        2013

Alcohol                                         20%

Notes

Quinta de Vargellas is run on Taylor’s award-winning sustainability model using single-row terraces, engineered to minimise soil erosion and chemical use.

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Welcome to The Caskaway

Personal, subjective and in no way definitive but I hope The Caskaway reveals a little of the passion I have for wine and beer. I’m no expert but I love to learn and wanted to share my knowledge and discoveries with all my drink writing in one convenient place. Why am I doing this when there is so much information out there already? Well, if one person reads and tries something new, I will call that a win.

There are honest tasting notes that you might hopefully find helpful, entertaining and maybe even instructive. Some posts try to help with the confusing and often obscure specialist terminology and language in both the beer and wine worlds and yes, there is a lot! Finally, there are links to all of my favourite recipes made using wine and beer (see below), and finally some expanded reviews of great pubs and other bits and pieces.

Formerly a full-time chef and publican, I’ve worked for two breweries, an award-winning Jersey based wine merchants and now try to write and broadcast about food and drink for local and national media including What’s Brewing and BBC Local Radio.