TAYLOR FLADGATE 40 Year Old Tawny Port HALF (37.5cl)

Description

Taylor’s 40 Year Old Tawny is an exceptional rarity, showcasing the mastery of cask aging and earning 96 points from James Suckling. He highlights its gentle complexity, featuring aromas of walnuts, salted peanuts, and ripe plums balanced by tannic austerity, culminating in a delightful chocolate and walnut finish. Tom Canavan gives it 95 points, praising its concentrated palate with flavors of chocolate, caramel, and vibrant Seville orange marmalade, boasting impressive length. The Wine Advocate also rates it 95 points, noting its weighty mouthfeel and aromatic depth, enhanced by gripping acidity. With its rich, voluptuous texture and extraordinary intensity, this Tawny Port offers a sublime tasting experience, perfect for enjoyment now or over the coming decades.

*****

Taylor’s 40 Year Old Tawny is a very rare old tawny blend, produced in limited quantities. Selected red Ports produced in the eastern areas of the Douro Valley, are matured in seasoned oak casks in Taylor’s cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia. Here the cool and damp coastal climate encourages a slow and gentle ageing process producing aromas of great complexity and finesse.

The 40 years of ageing in wood have concentrated this wine almost to an essence, producing intense and complex nutty and spicy aromas and a dense and concentrated palate full of rich mellow flavour. A sublime Port of very great age which shows the old olive-gold hue of its many years in cask. Decades of evaporation have concentrated this extraordinary wine to an exceptional density, with a powerful nose of dried fruit, honey and a touch of spice. Impressions of nutmeg, roasted coffee and an intense nuttiness converge both in the bouquet and on the palate. The wine’s rich, intense, voluptuous, almost viscous texture culminate in a finish of incredible length.

JAMES SUCKLING 96 points
A gentle old port that shows its age with walnuts, salted peanuts, plums, dried cherries and raisins. Slightly lifted nose. Heady. It’s full-bodied and layered with intense sweetness. But tannic austerity balances it out. Chocolate and walnuts at the end. Gorgeous, after-dinner port. Drink now.

TOM CANAVAN 95 points
Meaty, dark, not quite as expressive and open as the 30-year-old, the palate a hugely concentrated but comparatively monolithic wine, chocolate and caramel, that tang of Seville orange marmalade, shellac and immense length and concentration. Magnificent and profound stuff without any doubt, though the 30-year-old has more accommodating charms. Several merchants offer this in-bond, by the six-bottle case.

THE WINE ADVOCATE 95 points
Reviewed by: Mark Squires
Drink Date: 2015 - 2055
The NV 40 Year Old Tawny Port was bottled with a bar top cork in 2014. It comes in with 125 grams per liter of residual sugar. Big, weighty and mouth filling, this is an aromatic Tawny that finishes with acidity and tension. Gripping on the finish, its flavors become more interesting as long as it sits in the glass (or on your palate). It is not, perhaps, as sunny as the Fonseca, its sibling reviewed this issue, but it is denser and more gripping. Comparing to the Taylor 30 (also reviewed), I'm not sure I liked the 40 here all that much better. The 30 is a bit fleshier while this 40 is a bit more concentrated in flavor and aromatics. Perhaps some additional age also helped this 40 combat some of the aggression on the 30. They are both pretty fine, a difference of five to Midnight and five after, rather than night and day. It is still a fine experience and my favorite of the group. Don't drink it too warm. Room temperature is mostly too warm. The sweet spot for most tends to be 58-62 degrees Fahrenheit.

VINOUS 92 points
The 40-Year Old Tawny (2017 bottling) has a lifted bouquet of marmalade, clove and singed leather, quite deep with hints of dried quince coming through. The palate is lively and vibrant on the entry, quite spicy with clove and ginger, very cohesive although I just miss that lovely nutty finish that is offered by its 30-Year Old counterpart. Tasted at the Big Fortified Tasting in London. - Neal Martin

JANCIS ROBINSON 18.5 points
RS 126 g/l. Orangey tawny. Very sweet and round. Not at all rancio. Not too reduced and concentrated. Great stuff. Dried-apricot notes. All in the right balance. (JR)