Dow's
Vintage Port
2011

The producer

The Symington family have been involved with Dow’s for most of 20^th century, starting with Andrew James Symington managing the vineyards in 1912, until full control over the estate in 1961. Today Dow’s is one of the few major port houses which is still entirely family owned and run. The four estates of Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira, Quinta do Bomfim, Quinta do Santinho, and Quinta da Cerdeira ensure a consistent supply of the finest fruit for Dow’s Port wines. 

The wine

Only produced in years of exceptional quality, Dow’s Vintage Ports are only declared two to three times per decade. Fruit for Dow’s Vintage Ports is sourced from the estate’s finest vineyards, including Quinta do Bomfim and Quinta de Senhora da Ribeira, which have a majority of Touriga Franca and Touriga Nacional planted, giving wines of a more powerful structure and ageing potential.

The Vintage Port’s ferment for longer than other port houses, thus resulting in a slightly drier style, which has become the hallmark of Dow’s. Consistently setting the standards amongst Port houses, Dow’s Vintage Ports are frequently awarded high scores from the world’s leading critics and can age for 50 years, sometimes up to 100 years.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a a guide to our customers.