Big news from Portugal. The Douro and Port Wine Institute (IVDP) recently announced a new category for port wine: the 50-year age designation. Kopke, the oldest Port wine house, founded in 1638, was the first to launch both a 50-year-old white and a 50-year-old tawny.
Le Club des Vins was there to celebrate this joyous occasion and to create 'the perfect blend' at Hotel The Grand in Amsterdam.
History in your glass
This new category of port wine is a multi-vintage blend of barrel-aged ports that represent the typical character of a particular age. While the most common age classifications are 10 and 20 years old, bottlings are available for 30, 40, and now also 50 years old. The wines blended into these rare 50-year-old Ports come from Kopke's enviable cellar, one of the Douro's best-preserved reserves.
For this 50-Year-Old Tawny, the youngest wine in the blend is approximately 48 years old, and the oldest is 53. The result is a beautifully balanced, incredibly layered wine with notes of prunes and figs, caramel, honey, orange peel, balsamic vinegar, and chocolate. Words fail you when you taste such a wine. How do you describe fifty years of history in your glass?
The art of blending
The tasting of the 50-Year-Old Tawny was accompanied by a blending workshop led by master blender Carlos Alves. Each attendee received a stylish case containing five different aged ports to try their hand at. One port adds color, another freshness, and another is more developed. Color and balance are the key to creating the perfect blend. A challenging task, but fortunately, Carlos Alves has the solution and ultimately shares the winning recipe:
- 0% of wine A (22 years old) – fresh, quite young, sweet fruit, roses
- 14.5% of wine B (48 years old) – nuts, spicy, caramel
- 25% of wine C (49 years old) – developed, lighter color, wood, smoky
- 27.5% of wine D (50 years old) – complex, nuts, toffee
- 33% of wine E (53 years old) – brown color, balsamic, sage, coffee, chocolate
Kopke 50 Year Old Tawny
Kopke 50 Year Old Tawny Port is available at Wine merchant of Ouwerkerk for 185 euros.
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