Over the past two decades, Taylor has added to its fame as a producer of long-lived Vintage Port by assembling formidable stocks of old tawnies. In the process, David Guimaraens has come across some ancient wines in...
Over the past two decades, Taylor has added to its fame as a producer of long-lived Vintage Port by assembling formidable stocks of old tawnies. In the process, David Guimaraens has come across some ancient wines in farmers’ cellars, like the one presented as Scion several years ago. Taylor has followed that rarity with a bottling from the 1863 harvest—a year legendary for Vintage Port. It produced a barrel-aged wine that might catch you off guard with the freshness of its fruit. It’s not freshness in a just-picked sense; rather, it’s like the scent of an apple barn long abandoned, or the fruitiness of porcini, of apple butter and tree sap. It’s a freshness that feels completely appropriate to a 150-year-old wine, completely integrated into the notes of treacle and spice, time captured in a beautiful, seamless whole.