Taylor Fladgate 40 Year Old Tawny
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Winemaker Notes
This sweet wine shows fresh, rich black cherry and cassis aromas. On the palate, it has a well-knit structure, with a velvety, luscious mouthfeel and smooth tannins.
Delicious as an after-dinner drink on its own, this wine also pairs well with desserts made from chocolate or berries. Made to be consumed immediately, without further aging.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This is a beauty, with a mix of date, dried cherry, hazelnut husk, green tea, singed sandalwood and bitter almond notes all racing along together in unison. Shows tension and clarity on the very lengthy finish. Drink now.
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Wine Enthusiast
A superb wine, elegance and weight combined magisterially. It has all the right mature flavors, ripe fruit, intense marmalade and concentration. This is a wine with a great reputation, and the taste doesn't let that reputation down. Imported by Kobrand.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
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.
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Wine & Spirits
From almond croissant to sweet fresh raspberries, this is a mouthwatering and flavorful Tawny focused more on richness than complexity. It settles into salty dried-fig notes with air, ready to elevate a post-theater supper of cured meats and aged cheeses.
Port is a sweet, fortified wine with numerous styles: Ruby, Tawny, Vintage, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), White, Colheita, and a few unusual others. It is blended from from the most important red grapes of the Douro Valley, based primarily on Touriga Nacional with over 80 other varieties approved for use. Most Ports are best served slightly chilled at around 55-65°F.
The home of Port—perhaps the most internationally acclaimed beverage—the Douro region of Portugal is one of the world’s oldest delimited wine regions, established in 1756. The vineyards of the Douro, set on the slopes surrounding the Douro River (known as the Duero in Spain), are incredibly steep, necessitating the use of terracing and thus, manual vineyard management as well as harvesting. The Douro's best sites, rare outcroppings of Cambrian schist, are reserved for vineyards that yield high quality Port.
While more than 100 indigenous varieties are approved for wine production in the Douro, there are five primary grapes that make up most Port and the region's excellent, though less known, red table wines. Touriga Nacional is the finest of these, prized for its deep color, tannins and floral aromatics. Tinta Roriz (Spain's Tempranillo) adds bright acidity and red fruit flavors. Touriga Franca shows great persistence of fruit and Tinta Barroca helps round out the blend with its supple texture. Tinta Cão, a fine but low-yielding variety, is now rarely planted but still highly valued for its ability to produce excellent, complex wines.
White wines, generally crisp, mineral-driven blends of Arinto, Viosinho, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and an assortment of other rare but local varieties, are produced in small quantities but worth noting.
With hot summers and cool, wet winters, the Duoro has a maritime climate.