Taylor's
Vargellas Vinha Velha
Vintage Port
2011

The producer

Founded in 1692 by Job Bearsley, Taylor’s is one of the oldest of the original founding Port houses. Still today the company remains independent and focusing solely of production of port wine. Taylor’s own some of the finest vineyards in the Douro Valley – including Quinta de Vargellas, Quinta de Terra Feita, and Quinta do Junico – while also sourcing fruit from estates owned by its 22 partner grape growers. All the port wines are aged in the cellars at Vila Nova de Gaia. The Vintage port, Single Quinta de Vargellas, and Aged Tawnys are amongst the finest produced in the region.

The wine

Located in the hilly eastern part of the Douro Valley, Quinta de Vargellas is widely considered the source of the finest port wines since the 1820s. In years when a Taylor’s Vintage is not declared, a Single Quinta Vintage Port is sometimes produced instead. Quinta de Vargellas is generally earlier maturing than Taylor’s declared Vintage Port but is an outstanding wine.   

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.