The wine of the month
Churchill's, Late Bottled Vintage, 2016
5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP
February 2021: Churchill's, Late Bottled Vintage, 2016 (19 EUR/23 USD in Sweden) port wine, Porto, Douro, Portugal, 5,0 of 5,0 NJP (100 points of 100 points) (04-02-2021 by Nenad Jelisic)
This is the best Late Bottled Vintage-port wine that I have tasted so far. And I have tasted many. This applies to both Churchill's Late Bottled Vintage and Late Bottled Vintage of all other port wine producers. It is unbelievable that five vintages in a row of one and the same wine got 4,0 NJP or more of the possible 5,0 NJP (2012: 4,0 NJP, 2013: 4,0 NJP, 2014: 5,0 NJP, 2015: 5,0 NJP and 2016: 5,0 NJP). The probability that NJ Wines would give 4,0 NJP or more to five vintages of one and the same wine in a price range below 200 SEK is as great as that someone would win 100,000,000 SEK on a lottery. It is even less likely that a wine would get 5,0 NJP out of 5,0 NJP (100 points of 100 points) three vintages in a row. With this vintage, Churchill's confirms that it produces the world's best Late Bottled Vintage-port wines. Bravo Churchill's!
An explosion of both aromas and flavours, especially flavours. The aroma is big, sweetly spicy, complex and fruity. The flavour is big, sweet spicy, fruity, complex and tannin rich. Clear aromas of sweet spices, dried dark cherries, dried figs, dates, milk chocolate, dried plums and black pepper. Clear flavours of sweet spices, dried plums, rum raisins, black pepper, dried figs, dried dark cherries and milk chocolate. The aftertaste stays in the mouth forever. It is peppery, sweet, spicy and a little bitter.
You can enjoy this fabulous port wine without anything or with dates stuffed with walnuts or with dates stuffed with feta cheese or with cocoa-rich dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa) or with a lot of different cheeses like Castello Blue, Gorgonzola, Parmigiano Reggiano, Roquefort, Stilton, and Västerbotten or with less sweet cherry pie, blueberry pie and apple pie or with pancakes filled with Nutella, very fine grated dark chocolate and walnuts or with Swedish kladdkaka, but so little sweet as possible.
The wine is a blend of six different grape varieties: Tinta Barroca, Tinta Francisca, Tinta Roriz, Tinto Cão, Touriga Franca and Touriga Nacional. The grapes for the wine come from a 50 hectare vineyard (Quinta da Gricha) that is located 150 to 400 meters above sea level on the south bank of the river Douro. The oldest vines are more than 60 years old. The wine's production process is as follows: the grapes are harvested and selected by hand, after the harvest, the grapes are delivered to the winery where they are destemmed and then placed in the low stone tanks (lagares) where they are treaded (crushed) by mechanized feet. After the destemming and crushing process, the grape must, which consists of pulp, skins and seeds, is fermented in the stone tanks until it has an alcohol strength of 6 to 8% when it is fortified to 19 to 21% with 77% grape spirit. Then the wine is separated from the grape must and aged in large oak barrels 4 years before it is released on the market. With Late Bottled Vintage, it is meant that the port wine comes from a single vintage and that has been aged in oak barrels between 4 and 6 years. Do not worry about the sediment of the wine in the second to last or the last glass. The sediment only shows that the producer has not filtered the wine at all.
I recommend that you start to drink this fabulous port wine at 8°C (unlike what most of wine websites and the producer itself recommend) and let it slowly grows/opens in the glass while you drink it. If you can drink Churchill's Late Bottled Vintage 2016 from Riedel Vinum Port or Orrefors Difference Sweet or Orrefors Elixir.
