WARRE

Lush and inviting in feel, with a beautifully creamy texture that lets plum sauce, blueberry reduction and raspberry pâte de fruit flavors glide along effortlessly. Notes of violet, anise and black tea are beguiling in the background before melding seamlessly on the finish. This shimmers with fruit, balanced by depth and spine. Drinking range: 2035 - 2055 Rating: 97 James Molesworth, The Wine Spectator (Oct 2019)

The 2017 Warre’s Vintage Port is made from some incredibly low yields, the Retiro vineyard cropped at a paltry 470 grams per vines. It has a very concentrated nose. This is higher-toned than the Cockburn’s with macerated black cherries, boysenberry jam, orange rind and a subtle eau-de-vie like element that becomes more pronounced with aeration. The palate is beautifully balanced and very well structured. This has tons of grip, a more masculine and assertive Warre’s compared to recent vintages. The acidity is extremely well judged with layers of black fruit laced with graphite and white pepper towards the prolonged finish. This will require a decade in the cellar to soften those tannins, but it will surely be worth the wait. Drinking range: 2030 - 2070 Rating: 94 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Jun 2019)

Ripe and pure black fruit, smells fresher than the Dow’s. Sweet blackcurrant tea and a touch of dark chocolate, like chocolate-covered fresh black cherries and blackcurrants. Becomes more floral as it opens, wilder, more exuberant. Chewy, chalky rather than grainy tannins. Deep and rounded and long with a dry-tasting finish. A generous, full-bodied whole. Drinking range: 2030 - 2057 Rating: 18 Julia Harding MW, www.JancisRobinson.com (Jun 2019)