Decanter World Wine Awards 2024 - 97 Points - Best in Show
"The low-yielding, dramatically concentrated 2017 Port Vintage is already something of a legend, so we’re delighted to have an example of this in our Top 50 Best In Show this year. As you’d expect, the wine is still a dense and saturated midnight black in colour, with powerful aromatics of bramble, damson and sloe. It still has a perfumed quality, too, almost as if wild flowers and citrus skins had been macerated in the must. The peppery violence of just-bottled Vintage Port, by contrast, has now dissipated and the wine is beginning to seem calm. It’s splendidly thick, weighty and concentrated on the palate, with rich tannins, low acidity and medicinal, apothecary notes reminiscent of the cistus and other herbs of the Douro biotope. For those who love to age Vintage Port, this will be a mid-term bet; the tannins need to soften a little, but catch it while the very ripe brambly fruits are still opulent, prominent and flower-freighted."
