- VVO Tawny, Vermouth, Quinado
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Kopke are well known for their stocks of historic Port. Their practice for many generations has been that when commercial stocks are sold to the point where around 1,000 litres are left, the stocks are reclassified from “commercial” to “library” and become part of the legacy that the company passes down to future generations.
But what do you do with these library stocks? There are the fortunate few who work in the blending room and the cellar who taste them from time to time, but generally the wines are left to slumber and are almost forgotten.
- Carlos Alves selected these wines
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This year, to celebrate their 385 anniversary, Kopke have chosen to release a very small quantity (385 packs to celebrate 385 years) of three of the unusual and unique wines which would otherwise continue to sit in the library. The three wines chosen by Carlos Alves and his team have all benefited from over 100 years of maturation in small casks, with only 400 litres being made available for sale. Each pack consists of 3 half bottles in a well designed faux-book case, the three half bottles being one each of Very Very Old Tawny, Vermouth and Quinado. The recommended retail price for a pack is £3,000 + VAT.
- Spot the Library Release
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Despite the price, the wines are astonishing in their quality. The Very Very Old Tawny is a blend made many years ago and returned to barrel for further maturation, the blend was made from a variety of wines, of which the youngest was from 1937 and the oldest from 1890.
Alongside this was a Vermouth made from what is believed to be a ruby Port base – a wine which is no longer permitted to be made – and also matured in barrel for at least 100 years. The recipe for the Vermouth has been lost so this cask is the last opportunity to taste a style and form of wine which is disappearing into the mists of history.
The third wine was a Quinado, again with at least 100 years of aging in barrel. All three of these wines appear in the historic inventory of the company but at no point is the receipt or creation of these wines recorded. I have been fortunate to taste a number of very old Quinado wines but this one is extraordinary – it has the depth of extended barrel aging but also has incredible balance and finesse.
The labels are based on historic labels held in Kopke's records, labels of a style very likely to have been used on the bottles when these wines were originally offered to the market in the first half of the 1900s.
- Wonderful labels
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Do the packs offer value for money? It depends on your perspective. This is definitely an opportunity to taste history and which will never be repeated and Kopke were very open about the fact that they hope their pricing means that packs will be available for a few years and not sell out too quickly.
The tutored tasting of these wines was followed by dinner, with the food carefully chosen to provide an opportunity to taste four wines from the Kopke stable:
- NV Kopke Library Collection Tawny VVO,
- NV Kopke Library Collection Vermouth,
- NV Kopke Library Collection Quinado,
- São Luíz Winemaker’s Collection Tinta Cão Rosé 2022,
- São Luíz Winemaker’s Collection Folgazão / Rabigato Branco 2019 (with 18 months of bottle age),
- Quinta da Boa Vista Vinha do Ujo 2020, and
- Kopke Quinta de São Luíz Vintage Port 2021.
