The wine of the month

​

Churchill's, 20 Years Old Tawny Port

​

5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP

​

December 2024: Churchill's, 20 Years Old Tawny Port (52 EUR/54 USD in Sweden) port wine, Porto, Douro, Portugal, 5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP (100 points of 100 points) (By Nenad Jelisic)

​

Wow - what a brilliant wine! Here we have one more masterpiece from the legendary port wine house Churchill's. The wine house that NJ Wines has consistently given 4,0 NJP (90 points) or more from and including the vintage 2012 up to and including the latest vintage 2019. Of these eight vintages, five got 5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP (100 points of 100 points) and three 4,0 NJP (90 points). And now, Churchill's 20 Years Old Tawny Port gets 5,0 NJP (100 points). Absolutely incredible! And it proves once again that the people who work at the Churchill's winery are pure geniuses when it comes to making port wines. Here I must point out that producing a sweet wine that has a brilliant acidity and brilliant tannins which together brilliantly respond to the wine's high sweetness is extremely difficult. Over the past 40 years I have tasted hundreds of port wines and can say that extremely few port wine makers have succeeded with this wonder i.e. to produce a sweet wine (port wine) that has brilliant acidity and brilliant tannins that brilliantly respond to the high sweetness of the port wine. Bravo Churchill's! The wine can, with great pleasure, be drunk now, but it can also be aged for another 2 years, i.e. until 2026.

​

An explosion of both aromas and flavours, especially flavours. The balance between the fabulous acidity, the fabulous tannins and the fruitiness is absolutely incredible. The aroma is big, complex, sweet spicy and peppery. In it one will find dried dark cherries, Crème de Cassis, white pepper, sweet spices, cocoa-rich dark chocolate and dried dates. The taste is big, complex, sweet spicy, fresh and sweet fruity. In it one will find cocoa rich dark chocolate, black pepper, ripe dark cherries, walnuts and Crème de Cassis. 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 (sticky chocolate cake), but so little sweet as possible. 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 it from Riedel Vinum Port or Orrefors Difference Sweet or Orrefors Elixir.

​

With Tawny Port means that the port wine comes from several vintages and that it must be aged in oak barrels from 2 years, the simpler version, to up to 40 years. Tawny port wine is produced in six different styles: Tawny, 10 Years Old, 20 Years Old, 30 Years Old and 40 Years Old. The age category indicates the average age of the port wine in the bottle and does not mean that the port wine is, for example, exactly 20 years old, if it is a 20 Years Old Tawny. 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, juice 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. Finally, the different vintages of the wine are blended, and the finished blended wine is aged in large oak barrels for an average of 20 years before it is released on the market.