Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman

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Over three centuries Taylor’s has built perhaps the greatest reputation of any Port house. Certainly its vintage wines are some of the most sought after upon release as well as at auction, and it has been instrumental in the resurgence of interest in Port in recent decades.

This enviable reputation and the quality of the wines may owe something to the stability of the company since it was founded in 1692. Of all the British Port shippers it remains the only one to have seen a smooth succession through the generations, never having been bought or taken over by outside interests.

The founding father of the company was a Smithfield pub landlord and landowner named Job Bearsly, who set up as a general trader in Oporto, selling the acidic red wines of the Minhao region among many other products. It was his son Peter who became, as far as anyone can tell, the first British trader to venture inland into the then remote Douro Valley in search of the richer, heavier wines which he believed would be more to the taste of the British.

It wasn’t until 1816 that the first Taylor, Joseph, appeared on the scene and in 1836 he was joined by John Fladgate. Joseph died in 1837 and shortly afterwards a Dorset wine merchant by the name of Morgan Yeatman joined as a partner. Over the years they acquired fine vineyards, not least the superb Quinta de Vargellas estate, purchased in 1893 after being ravaged by phylloxera. Having restored Vargellas to health and prominence the estate has become one of the company’s principal vinification centres.

Fladgate was ennobled by the Portuguese for his services but it was the Yeatmans who ran the business throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, until the passing of Dick Yeatman in 1966. Shortly after his death his widow Beryl asked nephew Alistair Robertson, then working in the brewing industry, to come and help run the company and, despite his initial reluctance to leave London for a somewhat sluggish Port industry still suffering in the wake of the Second World War, he came.

Robertson instituted a number of changes, including acquiring the famous Port house of Fonseca, (they later acquired Croft and Krohn too), and aided by the marketing nous of fellow partner Huyshe Bower, who sought out new markets to reduce the company’s dependence on the British market, and Bruce Guimaraens, scion of the Fonseca house, his tenure saw the revival of Taylor’s.

The greatest innovation of Alistair Robertson’s management was the introduction in 1970 of Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) Ports. Though the claim as to who first developed the idea is disputed by some houses, it is clear that the introduction of a late bottled vintage wine, already filtered so that there was no need for the customer to decant it, proved hugely popular and has remained so ever since. It did much to restore the company’s fortunes, not to mention the fortunes of the trade which was quick to latch onto the innovation and launch rival versions. Not far behind the introduction of LBV Port was the increased emphasis on aged tawnies, which Taylor’s pioneered at the same time.

Throughout the 1970s Taylor’s began to expand their own land holdings, acquiring good sites when the chance arose, including the old vineyard at Quinta da Terra Feita in the Cima Corga region, so that they could have complete control over the source of their fruit. It was a visionary approach that is having an increasingly important impact on the availability of excellent fruit as the number of Douro growers who turn to making table wines over the last decade has increased.

In 2000 Alistair’s son-in-law Adrian Bridge was appointed Managing director and works closely with his wife Natasha and winemaker David Guimaraens to maintain the trajectory achieved by Alistair.

Portugal

Like its neighbour Spain, Portugal has been undergoing something of a quiet revolution over the last twenty years or so. A reluctance to follow trends and plant international grapes is now paying dividends and the new breed of full-blooded, fruit-filled wines are more than able to compete on the world stage. The unique flavours that are the hallmark of Portugal's indigenous grape varieties have become its trump card.

Vinho Verde, sometimes spritzy and youthful and sometimes made with the aim of creating a more serious white wine, is in the verdant north-west, bordering the Spanish province of Galicia. A wet and fertile area, the grapes ripen with moderate sugar levels and refreshing acidity, meaning that the wines are usually lowish in alcohol at about 10-11%. Astringent, low alcohol red Vinho Verde is also produced.

Trás-os-Montes is a remote region of harsh winters and hot, dry summers in the north-east of the country is bound on one side by high mountains and on the other the border with Spain (the name means 'behind the mountains'. The schistous soils and the grapes are similar to those of the Douro. Reds are often lighter and more aromatic than those of neighbouring Douro.

The Douro is one of the most beautiful wine regions in the world, and deservedly Portugal's best known, the Douro has quickly emerged to lead the way as the country's premium wine region and there is a real pioneering spirit amongst the winemakers here, port shippers included. Although there is an enormous variety of different terroirs within the Douro Valley, this is essentially a sparsely populated, hot, arid region where grapes are grown on spectacularly steep terraced slopes. Wine grapes are the same as those that go into Port. Wines tend to be high in tannin and flavour.

Dão is south of the Douro on granite slopes protected by high mountains and pine forests. The region produces one of Portugal's better-known reds of the same name. Once dominated by rather lack-lustre co-operatives, the area now has a whole clutch of dynamic, small producers making elegant, approachable and enjoyable wines.

Between the mountains and the coast, on fertile clay soils, is Bairrada (barro is Portuguese for clay). Better known for red wines, this is one of the only wine regions in Portugal to be dominated by a single grape variety,the tannic, high-acid baga, making wines that can be tough and astringent in their youth but which soften with age, becoming beguilingly perfumed. These days many blend baga with non-indigenous grapes to make a friendlier style, but the greatest are pure baga. The area also benefits from late-afternoon breezes which favour the production of fresh, food-friendly whites and increasingly popular sparkling wines.

Beira Interior is a rather disparate region covering a vast swathe of inland Portugal south of the Douro and east of Dão. Vineyards are grown at altitude on granite soils. In the north, grapes are similar to those of the Douro while the south has a whole mix of varieties.

Lisboa is a large, coastal region that runs north from Lisbon. Atlantic breezes help cool the vineyards and maintain the fresh acidity and aromatics in the mostly white wines. North of Bucelas, on the Atlantic west coast lies the strip of rolling countryside that contains nine separate DOCs under the umbrella name of Lisboa. This is Portugal's largest wine producing region in volume terms.

Bucelas was the first wine The Society ever sold! This tiny DOC is one of the closest to Lisbon. It produces breezy dry whites which are popular locally.

Tejo was formerly known as Ribatejo is known for good, everyday drinking wines in a range of styles from a wide range of permitted grapes. This region lies on either side of the River Tagus

Lying across the mouth of theTagus river, the Península de Setúbal is a flat, sandy region with the exception of the Serra da Arrábida a short chain of mountains with clay and limestone soils. There are two DOCs here, Palmela north-east of the peninsula where the castelão grape is ideally suited to the sandy soils, and Setúbal, where a sweet fortified wine is made primarily from muscat of Alexandria.

The Alentejo province stretches south from the Tagus to the Algarve and east to the border with Spain and covers almost a third of continental Portugal. Divided into seven diverse sub-regions, the undulating hills are home to many crops. Despite the challengingly arid climate here, this is a dynamic region, referred to sometimes as Portugal's 'new world'.