Following their purchase of Wise and Krohn, Taylor's have a huge range of old, cask aged Ports. Now comes the release of a series of Single Harvest Ports (Colheitas in all but name) of which the 1964 is the first to be offered, just in time for next year's 50th birthdays.
With the 2011 Vintage Port tasting season coming to an end, I have received four bottled wines (as opposed to cask samples) from Sogevinus, the Spanish group that own Barros, Calem, Kopke and Burmester. Sogevinus originated in 1998 following the sale of family owned Port shipper Calem and the group acquired Burmester in 2005 followed by Barros and Kopke. As a group they are the leading shippers in Portugal in terms of sales of Port wine and global market leaders for colheita Port.
Kopke, the oldest Port shipper in continuous trading, celebrates its 375th anniversary this year. At a time when colheitas are in fashion (even among the British houses who used to quietly eschew the style), Kopke has no need to scour the Douro in search of old wine. Kopke has long been sitting on some fabulous stocks of old colheitas and tawnies in their cool lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia and it seems that they have been well cared for under a number of different owners.