2026: Very Very Old and 80 Year Old Ports at the bft

[Alex Bridgeman]

80YO and VVO Port

In the run up to the bft this year (2026) we were asked if we could organise a press tasting of a selection of the new categories of Port – 80 Year Old Tawny and 80 Year Old White.

At the bft 2026

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Always up for a challenge, I got on the phone and started to call people. The task was to put together a selection of wines that would be of enough interest to the right quality of audience.

The producers I spoke to were interested and willing to participate, provided the audience was the right calibre and the structure of the tasting gave the producers time to talk to the audience. The members of the media and key buyers for organisations likely to sell or serve these wines were interested and were willing to commit to being at the bft provided there was a range of wines from big and small producers and there would be enough time to taste the wines and speak with the producers.

Glasses waiting to be tasted

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Out of these two sets of parallel conversations was born the structure for a tasting. An audience of 14 people with 7 producers presenting their wines. Audience members would circulate around the producers’ tables, moving on at their own pace. Producers would generally have a couple of people at their table at any time and – if we ran the tasting for 70 minutes – would have about 10 minutes with each pair of audience members. 10 minutes felt like enough time for a tasting of one or two wines plus a short Q&A session.

[Alex Bridgeman]

The next step to actually delivering the press tasting was to sign up the producers who had already said they were interested. This is when things started to come a little unstuck. Chatting to Filipe Marinho from Quinta da Devesa, he apologised profusely but said that he would not be able to participate despite his earlier interest. I didn’t push, diary conflicts happen to the best of us.

Then the same thing happened when I was talking with Elisabete Almeida from Agri-Roncão. Initially very interested and wanting to show a tawny and a white from her range, she was now unsure. Given this was the second person having doubts, I wanted to understand what was causing the hesitation.

Some of Devesa's wines at the bft

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Quinta da Devesa have two old wines on the market. Both are prominently labelled 80 but what I wasn’t aware of at first was that both of these wines fall outside the definition of the regulations governing the new category of 80 Year Old. Both are older, and qualify for the category of VVO or Very Very Old, now officially meaning older than wines within the 80 Year Old category. Both of these wines had been blended and bottled in 2024 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the current owner’s family acquiring the quinta and featured 80 prominently on the labelling, but pre-dated the 80 Year Old category so were governed by the regulations for Port wines more than 50 Years Old.

One of Elisabete’s wines was also over 80 years of age. The DR White VVO had been bottled to celebrate a 90th anniversary so also fell into the VVO category.

It turned out to be a very easy problem to fix.

[Alex Bridgeman]

80 features prominently

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Quinta da Devesa have two old wines on the market. Both are prominently labelled 80 but what I wasn’t aware of at first was that both of these wines fall outside the definition of the regulations governing the new category of 80 Year Old. Both are older, and qualify for the category of VVO or Very Very Old, now officially meaning older than wines within the 80 Year Old category. Both of these wines had been blended and bottled in 2024 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the current owner’s family acquiring the quinta and featured 80 prominently on the labelling, but pre-dated the 80 Year Old category so were governed at the time of release by the regulations for Port wines more than 50 Years Old.

One of Elisabete’s wines was also over 80 years of age. The DR White VVO had been bottled to celebrate a 90th anniversary and also fell into the VVO category.

The fix was no more difficult that a quick run of calls to the people invited attend the tasting to ask the question “Are you happy for us to include older wines as part of the 80YO tasting, and make the scope of the tasting 80 Year Old and VVO Ports?” I wasn’t surprised that no-one objected, so I was able to go back to Filipe and Elisabete and let them know the change of scope for the tasting — and both were very happy to include their wines.

Tasting the 80YO and VVO

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In the end we put together a terrific mix of large and small producers with Taylor showing their VVO plus Graham and Kopke showing their 80 Year Olds. We would have included Quinta do Noval’s (rumoured) 80 Year Old but they were not yet ready to announce and show the new blend. Alongside these names were a collection of boutique producers: DR, Maynard, Quinta da Devesa, Blackett and the newly launched JáFoste from Luís Rodrigues — one of the most prolific blenders in the Douro Valley. In total the tasting featured 8 producers, between them showing 11 wines. 3 of the wines were white Ports, 4 were VVO Ports. Retail prices of the wines ranged from £385 (Maynard, discounted at vintagewineandport.co.uk) up to £1,675 (Graham’s 80 Year Old, Hedonism).

[Alex Bridgeman]

The tasting was a great success and gave the audience a real opportunity to try these remarkable wines in context. It was also a chance to understand the ways in which different winemakers interpreted and used the wines they had available to them. Maynard’s 80 was blended to a price point and was a good wine offering remarkable value for money. But what was absolutely clear was that the quality of these wines reflected their prices. Every one of these wines was stunning and was presented – quite rightly – with great pride by the winemaker or their representative. These are wines available in tiny quantities, wines which are windows into the history of the families who have nurtured them since the 1940s.

Chatting to producers

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If I had pockets deep enough, I would drink any and all of these wines regularly. Sadly, I don’t but I will be very happy to celebrate the occasional special event with a sip of one. If I am lucky, Vinum, the Yeatman or the Tivoli Kopke will offer these by the glass when I next visit Porto

I'm at the UK launch of the 2024 vintage today, but tasting notes will follow tomorrow...

[Alex Bridgeman]

Blackett 80 Year Old Tawny Port.

Founded by Pedro Carneiro in 2013, Blackett (a brand of Alchemy Wines) is one of the new wave of young Port companies taking advantage of the changes in regulation in 1986 and shipping directly from the Douro Valley. Although a young company, the name Blackett is a revival of the name of the firm established by George Blackett, a Leeds based wine merchant who became a significant shipper in the 19th century.

Blackett 80YO Tawny

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Production is based on wines coming from Quinta da Brunheda in the Douro Superior and from Quinta da Mata de Cima – one of the vineyards in the first mapping of the demarcated zone in 1756 – in the Cima Corgo sub-region. Blackett’s growing reputation is based on its aged white and tawny Ports, but the company also produces ruby, LBV and vintage Ports.

Laura presenting the wine

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This final blend sample of the 80 Year Old Tawny is an astonishing dark chestnut brown colour with a dark centre. Smooth and rich on the palette with tannins still sitting in the crepe Suzette, orange and muscvado sugar. Bright acidity keeps the flavours focused, balancing the sticky, treacle and citrus acidity finish. Really long and bitter-sweet. This is a Port which is rich and delicious. 95/100.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Quinta da Devesa

Quinta da Devesa features on the 1844 map of the valley drawn by Barão Forrester. The Quinta is located high on the hilltops above Peso da Régua in the Cima Corgo sub-region of the Douro Valley and has been in the current owner's family since 1941. As was normal at that time, the family were grape farmers as well as wine makers, selling the wines and later the grapes to the bigger producers based in Vila Nova de Gaia. However, the family had the foresight to keep back some of the wines they made, both white and tawny, slumbering peacefully in large wooden casks in the cellars under the house at the top of the hills overlooking the Douro. The white Ports were easy to keep back as there was little interest in them from the producers, so the whites were treated as the family’s house Port — drunk at family meals and shared with visitors. The tawnies were more of a challenge to keep as the producers were keen to buy these (both as young vintage wines but also later when they had become aged tawnies), but José Fortunato was also determined to keep back some of the best Ports from the best years. It is this library of family wines that the consultant winemaker, Luís Rodrigues, has been able to use to produce the two blends presented at the bft.

The family reserves

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Quinta da Devesa Very Very Old Tawny, 80th Anniversary
The final blend from a 75cl bottle filled in 2025. A glorious wine, rich and full of flavour yet without sacrificing any of the balance. Incredibly persistent on the palate with fabulous sweetness and a delicious slightly bitter kumquat to offset the sweet citrus peel. Simply divine. 97/100.

Tasting Devesa's Ports

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Quinta da Devesa Very Very Old White, 80th Anniversary
Both the VVO Tawny and the VVO white were the final blend of these wines, bottled in 75cl in 2025. When Port matures in wood for the best part of a century, the characters of the red and the white grapes start to become very similar. This VVO white has a sweet orange syrup on the palate. The wine carries itself with a lovely elegance, with a sweet white peach seasoned with some spectacular bitter citrus. This is such a lovely wine which can be sipped and savoured for hours. 96/100.

[Alex Bridgeman]

DR from Agri-Roncão
Named DR after Domingos Ribeiro, who started the company in 2001 after purchasing Quinta da Levandeira do Roncão which lies in the Cima Corgo, lying at altitudes of 500-600m on the north bank of the Douro River. The vineyard is known to date back to at least the middle of the 1800s from the presence of morótorios, which show the vineyard was productive in the years before phylloxera. The estate was partially abandoned before 2001, when the Ribeiro family began a 4 year project to bring the estate back to its former glory. Despite the company’s youth, the family have access to some amazing old wines and it is these that the wine-maker, Luís Rodrigues, has been able to use to create the new 80 Year Old Tawny blend and the limited edition VVO White “90th anniversary” edition.

Concentrated in the glass

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DR 80 Year Old Tawny
A new blend released in 50cl bottles in January 2026, this was the first time the wine was shown to the UK market. DR does not currently have a UK agent but the wines are available directly from the winery by mail order. Amber in colour with a delicious freshness on the nose. Astonishing in its intensity on the nose, so complex even before the first sip is taken. Initially, this wine has a lovely delicacy on the palate with a fabulous, intense lime oil finish. That delicacy so misleading, this wine really packs a punch of such intensity, yet does so without going overboard on its acidity. What a fabulous, top-notch wine. 97/100.

DR Very Very Old White, 90th Anniversary Edition
A very limited edition of only 60 50cl bottles, released in 2025. The wine had an average age of around 90 years when it was blended and bottled. Amber coloured with just a slight tint of rose, which made the wine look like it was a bowl of rose gold. Such a powerful nose! So full of fragrant dried lemon peel. Sweet yet beautifully balanced on the palate with an intensity of flavour that just has to be experienced to be believed, like liquidised dried apricots. Stunning. The aftertaste is even bigger than the palate. Thick, rich and sweet fruit all over the finish. Port cannot get much better than this. 98/100.

[Mike J. W.]

I believe I had that same 90 y.o. white when I was at DR in 2024. I scored it 98++ and it was the best Port that I had ever tasted in my life...until they brought out another bottle.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I believe I had that same 90 y.o. white when I was at DR in 2024. I scored it 98++ and it was the best Port that I had ever tasted in my life...until they brought out another bottle.

It really was something quite special, but next to impossible to get hold of in the UK

[Alex Bridgeman]

Graham 80 Year Old Tawny

The Symington family have been shipping Port from the Douro for 5 generations, ever since Andrew James Symington arrived in Oporto in 1882. But their Port lineage go back a further 8 generations through his wife, Beatrice Atkinson, who was descended from Walter Maynard. Walter Maynard was one of the earliest English wine merchants known to have been based in Oporto and is recorded in the city archives of 1652 as shipping 39 pipes of Port that year.

The Graham 80 Year Old came about through a wonderful serendipitous set of circumstances. Peter Symington is the youngest of Andrew James’s grandchildren, although they never met. Peter was born in 1944 and served as the family’s wine maker and master blender for 45 years until he retired in 2009. On his 80th birthday in 2024 the family wanted to mark the occasion with something appropriately special. His son, Charles, who is now the family’s wine maker and master blender was give the challenge of blending something appropriately special to use to celebrate Peter’s milestone. With permission to raid the family’s stocks of wood aged wines, Charles put together a blend based mainly on wines from the 1940s. Only 600 bottles were filled, with the intention of this would be a private bottling for use at family occasions. Since there was no 80 Year Old Tawny category, there was little point in trying to sell a wine commercially that would have to be described as something else.

Which meant that when a new category of 80 Year Old Tawny was introduced, the Symingtons had a blend ready to go – minus the bottles they had already enjoyed as a family!

Blended to commemorate Peter Symington's 80th birthday

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A remarkable ginger coloured wine with freshly baked ginger nut biscuits on a glorious lifted nose is a fabulous introduction to this wine. The concentration and acidity are Intense, bringing wave after wave of flavours with them that all but smother the palate. It is very rare that a wine overwhelms me emotionally, but this is one of those astonishing wines. I thought other wines at this tasting were good - but can a Port be better than this? I am not sure. 99/100.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Jáfoste

Although Luís Rodrigues blends Ports for a number of small producers, he now also has his own project based on wines he has been able to acquire from families dotted around the Valley, families that he has got to know through his work as a consultant winemaker and viticulturist. LR Wines & Experiences is the project, and Jáfoste the brand used for these ancient wines. As an example of the way in which he and his wife are rethinking the traditional approach to the market, Jáfoste are offering these 80 Year Old blends in 20cl bottles to make them more accessible to people who might want to buy them.

20cl bottles

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Jáfoste 80 Year Old Tawny
Rich Christmas cake and black treacle on the nose. On the palate the wine carries a delightful intensity of dried fruit — apple, orange, pineapple — with combine together to give an impressively rich complexity. A wine which is big and fulsome; one which leaves a warm, tingling glow and a powerful orange marmalade on the amazing, long finish. 97/100.

Jáfoste 80 Year Old White
Remarkable dusty orange fruit on the nose, wonderfully expressive. Mellow orange and ripe pineapple on the palate revelling in being a wine made to show off its complexity in such an elegant manner. The sweet yellow fruit in light syrup finish saunters around the palate and the memory until you wonder whether the wine really was that good and take another sip just to check. 96/100.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Kopke 80 Year Old Tawny

Carlos presenting to Ines

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This wine was presented by Carlos Alves, the Director of Viticulture & Oenology at the Kopke Group, and the man justifiably very proud to have brought together the aged wines that created this blend. Established in 1638, Kopke is the oldest active Port shipper and owns one of the most complete libraries of historic and aged wines going back to the 1930s.

This was a bottle of the final blend of the 80 Year Old Tawny, bottled in 2025. A rich amber colour, the wine showed warm and gently spicy ginger root on the nose. The entry onto the palate was so smooth, full of dried fruit and with the richness of the extra citrus acidity you find only in blood orange. That blood orange character dominated the aftertaste and blended beautifully with the honeyed flavours of Golden Syrup on the long and lovely finish. At a price point of £650 (Hedonism), this offers remarkable value for money amongst its peers. 96/100.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Maynard 80 Year Old Tawny

The Maynard brand — named after the English wine merchant from the 1650s, Walter Maynard – is part of the portfolio of the Vinihold group, managed by Fernando and Álvaro van Zeller with Álvaro overseeing the blending of this wine. With roots in the Douro Valley that go back 14 generations the van Zeller family have access to wines which have been aged in their own cellars and also in the cellars of friends and family. It is access to these wines which has enabled Álvaro to put together the most accessibly priced wine at this tasting. Currently available from Vintage Wine & Port at a discounted price of £385.

This is a wine which expresses gentle dried vine fruit and some prunes on its expressive and joyous nose. There is a nice balance on the palate, with good acidity cutting across the sweetness of the dried black fruit. A little bitter quince and grapefruit oil on the late palate provides a pleasing counterpoint to the sweetness of the fruit and continues to deliver on a good finish. This is a lovely wine, offering excellent value for money in the category, although, in fairness, it is not quite a match to the quality of its more expensive peers. 94/100.

Tony Carter presenting Maynard 80YO

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[Alex Bridgeman]

Taylor Very Very Old Tawny

A blend with about 100 years average age

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This wine has an average age of around 100 years and will be the oldest wine offered in the Taylor portfolio once the 1896 single harvest tawny has sold out. This is a blend of some of the smaller parcels of historic wine from the Taylor cellars, brought together by the master blender David Guimaraens. First offered to the market in 2021, when this wine was bottled, the VVO initially sold quite slowly but word of mouth as to the quality of this blend soon spread with the result that the wine is now in steady demand.

The centenarian qualities of this wine show on the lovely polished dark chestnut colour. Astounding on the nose, so expressive, so easy to luxuriate in the beeswax polish. The balance on the palate is exquisite. The texture is so elegant, yet the flavours so intense. Big, bold and absolutely amazing yet I cannot get over the divine balance of the wine. Glorious Port. 98/100.

Taylor's presented in a decanter

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[Alex Bridgeman]

That's the last of the tasting notes, so the review is now complete.

[Glenn E.]

Jáfoste

Although Luís Rodrigues blends Ports for a number of small producers, he now also has his own project based on wines he has been able to acquire from families dotted around the Valley, families that he has got to know through his work as a consultant winemaker and viticulturist. LR Wines & Experiences is the project, and Jáfoste the brand used for these ancient wines. As an example of the way in which he and his wife are rethinking the traditional approach to the market, Jáfoste are offering these 80 Year Old blends in 20cl bottles to make them more accessible to people who might want to buy them.

Are the also available in larger bottles, or only in these 20cl bottles?

I do like the idea of 20cl bottles for affordability reasons, but that's... 4 servings if you're stretching? Makes them difficult to share.

[Mike J. W.]

Great write-ups! Thank you Alex.