Ferreira Tawny 'Dona Antónia' 10 Year old Port

Tasting Notes

Pale brick red in colour. On the nose, mellow red fruit aromas are married with notes of roasted nuts, marmalade and caramel. On the palate, a vibrant acidity perfectly balances the sweetness and carries the rich flavours onto the smooth finish

Producer

Founded in 1751, when the Port trade was dominated by British shippers, Ferreira is the oldest Portuguese Port house and remains the favourite in the domestic market.

It was under the leadership of Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, one of the formidable widows of the world of wine, that the company became the force it is today. Not only was Dona Antónia an astute businesswoman – expanding the company’s vineyard holdings, developing viticulture in the Douro Superior and protecting the company’s library stocks – she also fought to improve quality of life for the impoverished people of the Douro, building schools and hospitals and supporting them during the phylloxera crisis. Dona Antónia was ahead of her time in recognising the importance of vineyard ownership to guarantee quality, at a point when most other Port houses bought bulk wine from farmers. By the time of her death in 1896, Ferreira had become the largest Douro landowner and owned many illustrious Quintas including Quinta do Vesúvio, Quinta de Vargellas and Quinta do Vale Meão.

Vineyards

The grapes for the Ferreira Aged Tawnies are sourced from prime vineyard sites in the Cima Corgo and Baixo Corgo sub-regions of the Douro. The Douro is the largest mountainous vineyard area on earth and vines are planted on steep terraces sloping down to the Douro river, many of which are supported by ancient, UNESCO-world-heritage-protected dry stone walls. Given the steep gradients and the inaccessibility for machinery, vineyard operations and harvesting are carried out by hand. Soils in the Douro are composed of a dense, slate-like, metamorphic rock called schist. In the Douro, the schist fractures vertically, allowing the vine roots to delve deep to access water and nutrients to sustain them through the hot Douro summers. The poor quality of the soil means that the vines produce low yields - on average 1.5kg of grapes per vine - of intensely concentrated fruit, packed with flavour and able to stand up to decades of oxidative ageing.