Fonseca, Porto (Portugal) 2009

Fonseca vintage Ports are typically slightly riper and less taut than Taylor’s because of the location of their major vineyard, Quinta do Panascal.  The difference holds true in 2009, with the Fonseca delivering lots of plumy fruit offset beautifully by exotic spice and firm yet suave tannins.  A luxurious elegance and focus acts as a perfect foil for its power.  This is truly “an iron fist in a velvet glove” and deserves to be in every Port-lover’s cellar.  David Guimaraens, the chief winemaker of Taylor Fladgate, Fonseca and Croft, says he is not old enough to know how the great Ports of the 1940s tasted young, but he imagines they must have been like the 2009s.