Portugal > Douro > Porto Palmer

The Wines

We are pleased to offer a selection of Palmer’s exquisite Ports in a range of ages and styles:

10-Year-Old White: The grapes are hand-picked and carefully transported to the winery to be cooled down in cold chambers. The grapes undergo a period-usually one day-of maceration followed by fermentation in stainless steel with temperature control until the desired sugar level is reached. At this stage, The wine i fortified with brandy to stop fermentation. The wine shows bright golden notes surrounding a light amber core. On the nose, a bouquet of complex aromas of almonds and honey with light hints of candied orange peel. The palate is outstandingly rich, tasting of peach, apricot, and spiced vanilla enveloped in sweet fresh notes of cedar. Graceful and long-lasting finish. Pairs perfectly with desserts, especially spiced apples with toffee and walnuts. It can also accompany medium to strong cheeses. Delicious on its own as well.

10-Year-Old Tawny: After manual harvest, the grapes are partially destemmed and crushed into tank, where a slight maceration occurs before alcoholic fermentation. The wine is then fortified and moved to oak casks for ageing in the Douro for between 9 and 12years. The various component wines are then blended and lightly filtered before bottling in Vila Nova de Gaia. Bright in appearance with a rich tawny color. Aromas of dried fruits, coffee, honey, and caramel. Taste of ripe black fruits, chocolate, and spicy oak. Best paired with desserts based on dried fruits, red fruit sor dark chocolate. For contrasting pairings, it try with intense blue-veined cheeses.

20-Year-Old Tawny: Produced as the 10-year Tawny with further ageing in cask for between 15 and 30 years before final blending and bottling. The wine has an intense amber color and a golden brown rim. It has aromas of jam and nuts, orange blossom, and spicy wood. On the palate, it has notes of dried fruits, salted caramel, honey, and vanilla. Ideal as an aperitif or dessert wine. Perfect to accompany Crème Caramel or, for the more adventurous, Foie Gras.

40-Year-Old Tawny: Produced as the 10-year Tawny with further ageing in cask for between 30 and 55 years before final blending, a light filtration, and bottling. Golden amber color. On the nose, it has aromas of dried fruits, honey, and spices On the palate, it is a wine with notes of roasted coffee, Ras-al-Hanout, caramel, and chocolate. Perfect to be enjoyed on its own. For an extraordinary pairing, try with Foie Gras Mousse.

2018 Late Bottled Vintage: After a scorchingly-dry, hot summer, harvest began on August 18th and continued for a month. Houses that were able to harvest the grapes most affected by drought early, as done at Palmer, were able to product ripe, concentrated wines that retain freshness and balance. After harvest and a refrigeration period, the grapes were partially destemmed and crushed. Maceration with regular pump over to extract skin color and flavor. Fortified, cask-aged for several years and then bottled without fining or filtration. Purple with an intense garnet rim. Aromas of black and red fruits, notes of mint and eucalyptus. Beautiful with soft cheeses such as St Andre or Camembert, or with a baked Brie served with fresh berries.

1999 Colheita: Colheita Ports are single-harvest Ports aged for a minimum of eight years in cask prior to light filtration and bottling. The 1999 was bottled in 2024. The 1999 Port from Palmer has a light oak colour. Bright nose with fresh citrus peel, nuts, dried plum, date and fig. Medium weight and elegant. Long and precise.

1974 Colheita: Colheita Ports are single-harvest Ports aged for a minimum of eight years in cask prior to light filtration and bottling. The 1974 was bottled in 2024. The 1974 Port from Palmer has a light to medium oak color. Elegant on the nose with orange peel, and a touch of honey. On the palate there is a lightness that is balanced by a good acidity. Superb.

1963 Colheita: Colheita Ports are single-harvest Ports aged for a minimum of eight years in cask prior to light filtration and bottling. The 1963 was bottled in 2024, marking 61 years in cask. The 1963 Port from Palmer has a light oak colour with a golden edge on the rim highlighting a colheita of exceptional age and quality. Much elegance on the nose with orange peel, walnuts, figs and a touch of honey. This port wine delivers a beautiful flavor supported by a long, long finish. Outstanding.

more about port

Port is a fortified wine produced from vineyards in the upper Douro River valley. The Port district was defined and established as a protected region, and the name Douro thus an official appellation, in 1756, making it the third oldest wine after Chianti (1716) and Tokaj (1730). Some 100 varieties of grape are permitted, although just five (Tinta Barroca, Tinto Cão, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo), Touriga Francesa, and Touriga Nacional) are widely cultivated and used for Port.

After harvest, the wines are vinified in the Douro region, then fermentation is halted by the addition of grape brandy. The young wines are then put into cask and sent down the Douro river via Barcelo to the port lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia.

Port is produced in a variety of styles:

Ruby: The most common type, ruby port is stored in tanks of concrete or stainless steel after fermentation, to prevent oxidative aging and preserve its bright red color and full-bodied fruitiness. The wine is blended to match the house style.

White port is usually simply port made from some of the permitted white grape varieties, in a manner similar to a Ruby. In Portugal, it’s commonly served as an iced mixed summer drink- port & tonic, port & club soda, etc.

Rose port is a very recent variation on the market, first released in 2008 by Poças and by Croft, part of Taylor Fladgate. It is technically a ruby port, but fermented in a similar manner to a rosé wine, with limited exposure to the grape skins, thus creating the rose color.

Tawny ports are wines usually made from red grapes that are aged in wooden barrels exposing them to gradual oxidation and evaporation. As a result of this oxidation, they mellow to a golden-brown color. The exposure to oxygen imparts "nutty" flavours to the wine, which is blended to match the house style. They are sweet or medium dry. When a port is described as tawny, without an indication of age, it is a basic blend of wood-aged port that has spent time in wooden barrels, typically at least three years.

Reserve Tawny port has been aged about seven years.

Age-Indicated Tawny Ports are a blend of several vintages. The target age profile, in years in wood, is stated on the label, usually 10, 20, 30, or 40 years.

Colheita port is a single-vintage tawny port aged for at least seven years, with the vintage year on the bottle instead of a category of age. Colheita port should not be confused with a vintage port: a vintage port will spend only about 18 months in barrels after harvest and will continue to mature in bottles, but a Colheita may have spent 20 or more years in wooden barrels before being bottled and sold. White Colheitas have also been produced.

Unusual and rare, vintage-dated Garrafeira ports combine the oxidative maturation of years in wood with further reductive maturation in large glass demijohns. It is required by the IVDP that wines spend some time in wood, usually between three and six years, followed by at least a further eight years in glass, before bottling. In practice, the times spent in glass are much longer.

Late Bottled Vintage (often referred to simply as LBV) is single-vintage Port bottled between four and six years after the vintage, sort of a partially tawny-style vinrage port.

Vintage Ports may be aged in barrels or stainless steel for a maximum of two and a half years before bottling, and generally require another 10 to 40 years of aging in the bottle before reaching what is considered a proper drinking age. Since they are potentially aged in a cask for only a short time, they retain their dark ruby color and fresh fruit flavours. Particularly fine vintage ports can continue to gain complexity for many decades after they were bottled. It is not uncommon for 19th-century bottles to still be in perfect condition for consumption.

Vintage Port is made entirely from the grapes of a declared vintage year. While it is by far the most renowned type of port, from a volume and revenue standpoint, vintage port accounts for only about two percent of overall port production. Not every year is declared a vintage in the Douro. The decision on whether to declare a vintage is made early in the second year following the harvest. The decision to declare a vintage is made by each individual port house often referred to as a "shipper".

Single Quinta Vintage Ports are wines that originate from a single quinta (estate), unlike the standard bottlings of the port wine houses which can be sourced from a number of quintas. Single quinta bottlings are used in two ways by producers. Most of the large port wine houses have a single quinta bottling which is only produced in some years when the regular vintage port of the house is not declared. In those years, wine from their best quinta is still bottled under a vintage designation, rather than being used for simpler port qualities.

The term vintage has a distinct meaning in the context of vintage port. While vintage is simply the year in which a wine is made, most producers of vintage port restrict their production of year-labelled bottlings to only the best years, a few per decade. If a port house decides that its wine is of a quality sufficient for a vintage, samples are sent to the IVDP for approval and the house declares the vintage. In very good years, almost all the port houses will declare their wines. In intermediate years, the producers of blended vintage ports will not declare their flagship port but may declare the vintage of a single quinta, e.g., the 1996 Dow's Quinta do Bomfim and Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas. Some houses declare their wines in all but the worst years: Quinta do Vesuvio has declared a vintage every year with the exceptions of 1993, 2002, and 2014. Improved wine-making technologies and better weather forecasts during the harvest have increased the number of years in which a vintage can be declared. Although there have been years when only one or two wines have been declared, it has been over thirty years since there was a year with no declarations at all.