Dow's Late Bottled Vintage 2016

  • 93 Wine &
    Spirits
  • 92 James
    Suckling
  • 92 Wine
    Spectator
4.2 Very Good (20)
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Dow's Late Bottled Vintage 2016  Front Bottle Shot
Dow's Late Bottled Vintage 2016  Front Bottle Shot Dow's Late Bottled Vintage 2016  Front Label

Product Details


Varietal

Region

Producer

Vintage
2016

Size
750ML

ABV
20%

Your Rating

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Somm Note

Winemaker Notes

Full-bodied, rich and perfectly balanced, Dow’s Late Bottled Vintage Ports are carefully selected to reflect the unique characteristics of each vintage, and are only bottled in the best years. Dow’s 2016 Late Bottled Vintage Port shares the same provenance with Dow’s legendary Vintage Ports, the iconic Douro properties of Quinta do Bomfim and Quinta Senhora da Ribeira. Aged in seasoned oak vats four to six years before bottling and release (ready to drink), and carrying Dow’s distinctive drier finish, this is an LBV worthy of attention.

Professional Ratings

  • 93

    Finely integrated and luscious, this is the kind of baby Vintage Port an LBV should aspire to be: Dark-fruited, the wine’s juicy wild-blueberry flavors have energy and supple grace. It could find a home with braised game, like boar, and after, with a cheese course

  • 92
    Blackberries with some dried fruit and hints of sultanas. Slightly lifted. It’s medium-bodied with lovely sweetness and a lightly chewy and grippy ending that turns sweet and slightly dry at the end. Delicious Port.
  • 92

    Solid, with a polished set of violet, plum cake, blackberry reduction and ganache flavors cruising through and an echo of Black Forest cake lingering on the finish. This would do nicely in a decanter over a weekend.

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Dow's

Dow's

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Dow's, Portugal
Dow's Dow's Quinta do Bomfim Visitor Center Winery Image

For over two centuries the name of DOW has been associated with the finest Port from the vineyards of the Upper Douro Valley. Throughout the 20th Century and into the 21st, the Symington family has built on the legacy of the preceding Silva and Dow families. Generations of Symington winemakers have worked at the Dow’s vineyards: Quinta do Bomfim and Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira, creating from them Dow’s superbly concentrated wines that are intense and tannic when young, maturing towards a superlative racy elegance with age and scented with violet and mint aromas. Dow’s attractive and distinctive drier finish is the recognizable hallmark of the wines from this great Port house.

The story of Dow’s is unusual amongst all the great Port houses. It began in 1798 when Bruno da Silva, a Portuguese merchant from Oporto, made a journey which was the opposite to that of the first British merchants. Bruno set up in London from where he imported wine from his native country. He married an Englishwoman and was rapidly assimilated into London society where his business acumen led to a fine reputation for his wines. But the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars put his business in jeopardy. Undaunted, Bruno da Silva applied for ‘letters of marque’ (Royal Assent to equip a merchant ship with guns) to secure safe passage of his Port from Oporto to Bristol and to London. His became the first and only Port company to transport its precious cargo of casks of fine Ports under its own armed protection across the treacherous Bay of Biscay, a strong dissuasion to attack during a period when less audacious companies saw their sales dwindle away.

The Port shipping business was continued by Bruno’s son, John da Silva who in 1862 brought into partnership Frederick William Cosens. Together with John’s son, Edward, they became the active partners in Silva & Cosens. Edward da Silva inherited his grandfather’s business ability and the company continued to prosper. Edward became a highly respected figure in the London wine trade and was one of the founders of the Wine Trade Benevolent Society, the leading charity which survives to this day as the principal British wine trade organisation. Edward da Silva was to be the Benevolent’s chairman and then, from 1892, its president for many years.

With the continuing expansion of the firm, Edward da Silva and Frederick Cosens were joined by George Acheson Warre, whose well known family had been involved in the Port trade since its earliest years. ‘GAW’ joined as partner in 1868 and became its driving force in Portugal.

In 1877, Silva & Cosens merged with another leading Port company, Dow & Co, who’s senior partner was James Ramsay Dow, who had made a name for himself in 1856 with the publication of his important treatise, ‘An Inquiry into the Vine Fungus with Suggestions as to a Remedy.’ The Oidium fungus was at the time devastating the Douro’s vineyards.

Although smaller than Silva & Cosens, Dow & Co had become a very highly regarded Port producer with a particularly fine reputation for its Vintage Ports and when the two companies merged, it was decided to adopt DOW’S as the brand name.

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Port is a sweet, fortified wine with numerous styles: Ruby, Tawny, Vintage, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), White, Colheita, and a few unusual others. It is blended from from the most important red grapes of the Douro Valley, based primarily on Touriga Nacional with over 80 other varieties approved for use. Most Ports are best served slightly chilled at around 55-65°F.

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The home of Port—perhaps the most internationally acclaimed beverage—the Douro region of Portugal is one of the world’s oldest delimited wine regions, established in 1756. The vineyards of the Douro, set on the slopes surrounding the Douro River (known as the Duero in Spain), are incredibly steep, necessitating the use of terracing and thus, manual vineyard management as well as harvesting. The Douro's best sites, rare outcroppings of Cambrian schist, are reserved for vineyards that yield high quality Port.

While more than 100 indigenous varieties are approved for wine production in the Douro, there are five primary grapes that make up most Port and the region's excellent, though less known, red table wines. Touriga Nacional is the finest of these, prized for its deep color, tannins and floral aromatics. Tinta Roriz (Spain's Tempranillo) adds bright acidity and red fruit flavors. Touriga Franca shows great persistence of fruit and Tinta Barroca helps round out the blend with its supple texture. Tinta Cão, a fine but low-yielding variety, is now rarely planted but still highly valued for its ability to produce excellent, complex wines.

White wines, generally crisp, mineral-driven blends of Arinto, Viosinho, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and an assortment of other rare but local varieties, are produced in small quantities but worth noting.

With hot summers and cool, wet winters, the Duoro has a maritime climate.

SWS995226_2016 Item# 781331

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