ows 2016 Vintage Port. The 2016 Vintage Ports are exceptional, with tannins that are amongst the most refined ever, supporting beautiful red-fruit flavours with extraordinary intense, purple colour. They have impressive structure and balance, with Baumes, acidity, tannins and colour in rare and perfect alignment. This is no doubt a result of the later ripening cycle which allowed our grapes to mature evenly and completely.Vintage Ports are only made on very exceptional years (usually three or four times in a decade). After the harvest, wines of Vintage potential are put into oak barrels called ‘pipes’. Some eighteen months later a careful and painstaking series of tastings is held to judge exactly which wines of different vineyards merit inclusion in the final blend. If the ideal blend is achieved, the wine is then bottled without any filtration whatsoever approximately 24 months after the original harvest. Vintage Port must then be matured for some ten to twenty years in cool dark cellars as it gradually achieves the outstanding style of a great wine. The bottles should always be stored lying down. Vintage Ports deposit a heavy sediment or ‘crust’ in the bottle while maturing and must be decanted prior to serving.