The launch of Kopke 80-Year-Old Tawny

I was privileged to be invited to the launch of Kopke’s 80-Year-Old Tawny at the recently opened Kopke Tivoli Hotel in Vila Nova de Gaia. Founded in 1638 by Nicholas Kopke, this is the oldest of all the Port shippers and now lends its name to the Kopke Group that includes Barros, Calém and Burmester. The new five-star hotel takes in the old Burmester lodge and well as most of Kopke but one of the old naves has been retained and beautifully restored as a showpiece Port lodge. This is where we ate dinner after which winemaker Carlos Alves revealed the new wine.

Kopke are well known for their stocks of old colheita Port and Carlos Alves revealed that it took three months to produce the lote for Kopke 80-Year-Old. It is made up of three wines ranging in age from 1900 to 1947. I asked Carlos what he thought made this wine uniquely Kopke and he referred immediately to the natural acidity that keeps this wine fresh and alive. There are just 1200 litres of this initial lote which will be bottled to order, priced at around €800 a bottle – I am assured that there is sufficient stock to match the excellence and style of this first lote to keep Kopke 80 Year Old on the shelves in future years.

Kopke are also making some rather good red and white Douro wines from their flagship estate, Quinta de São Luíz. These will be the subject of another post and will be included in the the new edition of my book, The Wines of Portugal, to be published early in 2026.

Kopke 80-Year-Old Tawny *****

Deep tawny-mahogany in colour with the tell-tale olive-green rim; obviously rich, slightly lifted with a hint of rancio and a madeirsied complexity on the nose; intensely sweet, syrup of figs and demerara richness (around 190 g/l residual sugar apparently and much the sweetest of the 80 Year Old tawnies that I have tasted to date), lovely focus mid-palate with toast and torrefaction and an incisive streak of acidity that offsets the natural and textural richness all the way through the rather gorgeous, suave figgy finish that, remarkably, is still fruit-driven after so many years in cask. Very beautiful old wine. 19