Kopke 10 Year Tawny in decanter

Tasting notes:

This is a limited-edition release of Kopke’s 10 Year Old Tawny in decanter. Golden amber in colour, it is both elegant and complex. On the nose there are notes of caramel, dried fruit, honey, and a touch of wood spice. Smooth and round on the palate, the port shows complexity of flavours with notes of toffee, fudge, and caramel. Ripe red berries shine through on the finish, which is pleasant and rich.

Food Match:

Irresistible with a starter of foie gras with aubergine and walnuts. A great choice for an endless array
of desserts. Such as toffee brownies, chocolate and pistachio pavé, or crostini of walnuts with chèvre.
Best served at a temperature between 12 and 14°C.

Region/Producer:

Hand-picked at the optimum time, the grapes are then de-stemmed, crushed and converted into wine through a process of careful maceration. This is to extract their colour, tannins and aromas, enhanced by constant churning during fermentation.  This takes place in vats (lagares) at a controlled temperature until the right degree of sweetness (baume) is achieved.

At this point, grape brandy is added to create the final fortified wine.  A wine of high quality. made by blending wines of different harvests to achieve the array of sensory qualities that are typical of these aged tawny Port wines.  These wines have each matured in oak casks for varied periods of time. With the average of all the wines in the blend defining the age on the label.  The resulting blend expresses the characteristics given by the ageing in wood.

In 1636, Nicolau Kopkë moved from Germany’s Hamburg to Portugal in his role as General Consul of the Hanseatic League, a northern European trading block dealing in linen, iron and wine. Kopke’s first bottles of wine were shipped in 1638, and by 1781 the company had purchased vineyards in the Douro Valley, moving from a trading company to an established wine producer.

In 1922, three centuries after the company’s foundation, Kopke purchased Quinta de Sao Luiz vineyard, a site regarded by them ‘as the jewel in the crown of the Porto region’. For the last 100 years this impressive terroir has been the cornerstone of Kopke’s winemaking. Since then, Kopke was bought and sold accordingly, and in the 19th century the port house was bought by the Bohane family in London. Kopke is the longest-standing port house.