Grahams 2016 The Stone Terraces Vintage Port 2.25 Litre Tappit Hen

Description

Grahams 2016 The Stone Terraces Vintage Port bottled in the very rare Tappit Hen format.

Grahams The Stone Terraces 2016 Vintage Port is a very special limited release vintage Port made from a very tiny section of vines planted on old stone terraces at Quinta dos Malvedos. It is a tribute to the men and women who labored to build the original stone walls at Quinta dos Malvedos in the late 18th century. When W & J Graham purchased the property in 1890, they set about recreating the necessary vineyard conditions to produce the finest Ports in the Douro, with little regard to cost. These terraces, which had been abandoned in the aftermath of phylloxera, were reconstructed by hand, recovering the sturdy retaining walls to create terraces, with minimal disturbance of the schist bedrock. A vine planted under these conditions is naturally stressed, having to put down deep roots through cracks in the schist to find the necessary water with which to survive the typically hot and dry summers of the Douro.

W & J Grahams was founded in Oporto, Portugal’s second city, in 1820 by the two brothers William and John Graham and for nearly two hundred years Grahams Ports have been made by just two families, the Grahams and the Symingtons – in 1970 the Grahams sold the company to the Symington Family (owners of Dow, Cockburn, Warre, Vesuvio et al.) who brought with them their own rich heritage in the Port trade. Graham’s has a reputation as a producer of outstanding Vintage Port for well over a century. Grahams Vintage Ports are only made in years of exceptionally high quality harvests, which on average occur two or three times in a decade. The weather in the vineyards is the principal determining factor: conditions must be ideal throughout the growing season, as well as during the subsequent harvest.

Winemakers are Charles Symington and Henry Shotton.

98 Points – Derek Smedley MW, 2018

96 Points James Suckling, jamessuckling.com, 2018

19.5 Richard Mayson, richardmayson.com, 2018

Read the Fareham Wine Cellar Guide To Decanting Port.