Barros Vintage Port 2002
£51.45
The wine
A rich and exuberant nose showing intense aromas of dried black plum jam and dates combined with violet overtones. Full bodied on the palate with silky tannins, the 2002 shows great opulence through to a long and elegant finish.
Vintage Port is declared only in exceptional years, perhaps three times a decade, and accounts for a tiny fraction of production. It spends barely two years in wood before bottling, so it matures in glass rather than cask, throws a heavy sediment and demands decanting. Two decades on, the 2002 is only now approaching its stride.
The producer
Barros
View all Barros winesBarros was founded in 1913 by Manoel de Almeida and José Barros, and celebrated its centenary a little over a decade ago. It sits among the most prestigious of the Port houses, and its reputation rests on one style in particular.
Colheita is Port from a single declared year, aged in cask rather than bottle for a minimum of seven years and frequently for far longer. It is the most demanding of the tawny styles, because a single vintage must carry the wine alone through decades of slow oxidation without the safety net of blending. Barros keep theirs in wood well beyond the legal minimum, and the house holds one of the deepest reserves of old Colheita in the Douro.
The lodges are at Vila Nova de Gaia, across the river from Porto, where Port has been aged since the eighteenth century because the cool damp air off the Atlantic suits long cask maturation far better than the fierce heat of the Douro valley itself. Ruby, White, LBV, Vintage and both tawny ages complete the range.
