Winning Wine Wednesdays:The Best Of Port Wines

The Douro Valley, birthplace of Port, is one of the oldest and most beautiful of the historic European wine regions.  Wine has been made there for two thousand years.

In 1756 the Douro Valley (part of the northern provinces of Portugal) became the first classic wine region to be legally demarcated.  Its vineyards were comprehensively classified the following year, almost a century before those of Bordeaux.

Cut off from the temperate coastal area by the Marão mountains, which shield it from the rain-laden winds blowing off the Atlantic, the Douro Valley has a climate of hot dry summers and severe winters.  Its wild and mountainous landscape is dramatic in scale and until relatively recently much of the region was remote and inaccessible.

Here, too, is where you will find one of the oldest port wine houses. Founded in 1692 in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal by Job Bearsley, the house that eventually became Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman (when Joseph Taylor, John Alexander Fladgate and Morgan Yeatman formed a partnership in 1838) is also one of the largest. 

The house owns the brands of Fonseca, Fonseca-Guimaraens, Taylor, and Croft.  The house ships almost all types of port including vintage, tawny, ruby,  white and (was responsible for inventing the style of) late-bottled vintage port. 

Taylor Fladgate's (as it is called today) vintage ports are some of the most sought-after ports in the world!

To acquire Taylor Fladgate Ports, learn about port traditions, and for holiday recipes go online to www.Taylor.pt.