Expert Review
The Wine Advocate 91 Points | My favorite of the three tawnys reviewed in this segment is the 20 Year Old Tawny. It offers an amber color, a spicy, tobacco, cedary, smoky, complex nose, dense, rich flavors that belie the color's aged, feeble look, and an expansive personality. It is a classic example of how delicious and complex a 20 year old tawny port can be. Tawny p...Show More >
Expert Review
The Wine Advocate 91 Points | My favorite of the three tawnys reviewed in this segment is the 20 Year Old Tawny. It offers an amber color, a spicy, tobacco, cedary, smoky, complex nose, dense, rich flavors that belie the color's aged, feeble look, and an expansive personality. It is a classic example of how delicious and complex a 20 year old tawny port can be. Tawny ports are aged in wood from essentially a solera system for the number of years indicated on the bottle. In most cases I prefer the younger ten or twenty year Tawnys to the ancient forty to fifty year old wines, but it is really a matter of taste. I tend to like more fruit rather than the oxidized and aged characteristics of the very old tawnys.
Winemaker Description
The 20 Year Old Tawny comes 100% from estate-grown grapes. It shows increasing characteristics of nuts, dried fruits and spices, as well as increasing complexity. Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz and Tinta Barroca are the major grape varieties in the blend, all trodden by foot in the lagares at Quinta do Noval. As with the 10 Year Old, aging is in old oak barrels of 640 liters. The wine displays classic Tawny color, with golden highlights, and an ethereal bouquet. Elegant, velvety and concentrated on the palate, it has an attractive, lingering finish.
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