A style of wood-aged Port that has always been prized in Portugal, Colheita is at last earning the respect it deserves in the rest of the world, says Richard Mayson, after a tasting shared with Simon Field MW and Andrew Jefford.
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Of all the different styles and categories of Port, colheita is still the most misunderstood. The word translates from Portuguese as “harvest,” and some Port shippers use the English term on the label, which perhaps adds to the confusion. The fact that there is a date on the label (the year of harvest) leads some people toward Vintage Port. But colheitas are shaped by time spent in wood. Unlike a Vintage Port, which spends around 18 months in large wooden vats before bottling, a colheita must be aged for a minimum of seven years in order to qualify. As we found, however, from this extensive tasting of colheitas currently on the market, there are plenty of wines currently available that have been aged for 30, 40, or 50 years or more. This extended maturation in small wooden casks (usually well-seasoned lodge pipes with a capacity of around 600 liters) turns the wines toward oxidative Tawny in style. As Andrew Jefford stated in his conclusion, “This fascinating and, in many ways, outstanding tasting […] has changed the way I look at colheita Ports. Prior to today, I thought of them
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
