TASTING NOTES:
Extremely perfumed with dark-berry and currant aromas. Hints of earth and spices. Full-bodied, round and medium sweet. Hints of resin. Opulent yet restrained. Shows ripe and beautiful fruit with clarity. Try in 2025.
- James Suckling, 97 pts
This unfurls with mouthwatering licorice snap, fruitcake, apple wood and violet notes, followed by a wave of mouthfilling plum, blackberry and fig paste flavors. This is packed but well-defined, and the energy allows the fruit to ripple through the long finish. Best from 2035 through 2055
- Wine Spectator, 97 pts
Juicy, luscious and with excellent ripe fruit, this is a balanced wine with a fine future. Its tannins are almost sweet to match the sweetness of the berry fruits. As it ages, this will be a lovely wine. Drink from 2027.
- Wine Enthusiast, 95 pts
The 2016 Vintage Port is a field blend that was set to be bottled about a week after this tasting. It was the final blend, aged for 20 months in wood. It comes in with 104 grams of residual sugar. Tight, powerful and very intense, this is a big boy with the firmness you expect from fine Vintage Port, although the Fonseca is even more powerful. Showing good concentration and a fresh, lifted finish too, this is impressive at the outset. Initially, I was wowed by this. A few more tastes with more air made me think I'd like to see it prove some things in the cellar. It's not hot, but it seems a bit more alcoholic than its Fonseca and Taylor siblings. Still, there's a long way to go before making a final call. As noted, this is very tight, not nearly as approachable as many 2016s are in this relatively restrained year. It won't sear your mouth with tannins—they are not TOO hard—but you are going to have to cellar it a while to allow it to acquire more complexity and more harmony. I'm not quite convinced this will ever become as attractive as Taylor and Fonseca in this vintage, though.
- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 94 pts
