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This is already drinking beautifully and will taste incredible in 20 years. If you already know and love this kind of wine, you’ll be thrilled. If not, you absolutely need to try it. It’s lush and concentrated, bursting with expressive fruit and spice — think clove, anise, satsuma plum, prunes, Christmas cake, black olive, and dark plum. No one on the tasting panel gave it less than 95 points — and more than a few went higher. Want to turn an already awesome experience into something transcendental? While you are decanting the bottle, lay out a platter of hard, salty cheeses like Comté and an aged cheddar, plus some Roquefort, dark chocolate, figs, walnuts, and mascarpone stuffed dates. These pairings are as close to nirvana as food and wine pairings get.
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The wine formerly known as Vintage Port
These days, the Aussie version of Vintage Port goes by Vintage Fortified — because the grape-stomping denizens of the Douro Valley, just up the road from Porto, have been making the stuff since Jesus was a lad and rightly wanted to keep the rights to the name.
In the Douro, VP is made only in the best vintages. A-grade fruit is picked, destemmed, and fermented in shallow open vats to maximise colour and flavour extraction. The ferment is halted with the addition of South African brandy, locking in sweetness while adding its own character and preserving the wine for long ageing. Winemakers then mature the wine in a mix of stainless steel and large balseiros. These preserve fresh fruit and minimise oxidation. For Tawny styles, smaller oak barrels called pipas are used, which allow slow oxidative evolution over 10 to 40 years, drawing the wine toward those nutty, dried-fruit and rancio notes we love in those styles.
Vintage Ports and Fortifieds tend to look their best around the 20-year mark, though many peak at 40 — and a few can still sing after a century. To retain freshness and fruit purity, these wines usually see only a couple of years in oak before bottling.
So yes, it’s called a Vintage Fortified — and no, it’s not Portuguese — but this one is an exceptional example of the style. It’s already drinking beautifully and will taste incredible in 20 years’ time.
Few Australian wineries still make one, yet it remains one of our great traditional styles. Where the Portuguese stop fermentation with brandy, Australian winemakers might use either brandy spirit or the more neutral grape spirit known as SVR. Brandy adds its own richness and spice; SVR lets the vibrant fruit shine.
When dessert time rolls around, lay out a platter of Comté, Roquefort, Gorgonzola, aged Cheddar, Stilton, dark chocolate, figs, walnuts, and Mascarpone-stuffed dates. Crack the bottle, pour into a decanter, and bliss out.
On the winery:
Situated 25kms from the ocean on the western side of the Darling Ranges in the Geographe region in WA, the 420-acre property, home to Willow Bridge Estate vineyard, is the love child of Jeff and Vicki Dewar. They purchased the property in 1996 after Jeff decided following in his parent’s broad acre farming footsteps wasn’t for him. In 1997 they planted 100 acres of vines, then another 50 acres two years later. First planted with Chardonnay, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Shiraz, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, the vineyards have since been bolstered with small blocks of Viognier and Tempranillo.
WINE NOW | PAY LATERS
