Fonseca

Today Fonseca Guimaraens remains one of the most important Port houses, the top wines occasionally challenging for wine of the vintage along with Taylor's and the better wines from the Symington stable, particularly Graham's. David Guimaraens not only oversees winemaking, but has also been instrumental in improving practice in the vineyard, with attentive selection of vines, enhancing the selection at harvest and introducing new carriers to protect the fruit as it travels from vineyard to winery.

He has also been responsible for modernising the cellar, introducing new temperature-controlled vinification vats designed in-house. These are known as port-toes, a name which gives a clue to their vital feature, piston-driven paddles to replicate the foot pressing of old. Their use is restricted to only non-vintage wines such as Bin 27, originally a vintage character wine but now designated as Premium Reserve in the Fonseca portfolio.

Although first released in 1972, the blend originated in the 19th century and had up until its commercial release been reserved for private consumption by the Fonseca PortGuimaraens family. The fruit is sourced from Fonseca-owned vineyards in the Cima Corgo, and blended with a healthy quantity of reserve wines before release, when it is ready for drinking. There is also a white Port, Siroco, a crusted style, a tawny with an average age of ten years and the newest addition to the portfolio, Terra Prima, a non-vintage organic port with an average age of five years.

But these are of less interest than the vintage wines which start with the LBV, introduced in 1983, and the top vintage ports. In non-declared vintages there are two vintage wines produced in the traditional style; firstly Guimaraens, which is produced in exactly the same manner as the vintage Fonseca in declared vintages, using fruit from a small number of Fonseca vineyards which include Quinta de Sao António and Quinta do Cruzeiro. Meanwhile, the harvest at Quinta do Panascal, a prized vineyard in the Tavora Valley which was purchased by the company in 1978 (although Fonseca had been purchasing the grapes harvested here long before then) is vinified and sold as a single quinta wine.