This company was founded in 1772 by an English merchant with the name Thomas Osborne Mann. So this seems like another tpical Port Wine company, doesn’t it? But no – because the company wasn’t founded in Portugal… it was founded in Spain. It’s quite famous over there, especially for the Sherry… but it less known for its Port Wine. The trademark of Osborne is a black bull… and the name Osborne is now pronounced “Osborn-eeh” as it is now much more Spanish than English…
The first time the company ventured into the Port Wine business when it acquired the Port Wine producer Duff Gordon in the 19th century – but in the end, the company just kept the brand and didn’t really try to grow grapes and make wine on its own.
It really started only to be interested in Port Wine in the 1960s and it worked together with Noval to get wines from them and to sell them under the Osborne-label. The 1960 Vintage for example was made entirely by Noval – and is therefore pretty decent (even if it is now much too old to be at its peak anymore).
When Noval had a major catastrophe in their storage facility in Gaia (fire) and decided to re-locate everything to the Douro-Valley, Osborne took over their installation in Gaia. They don’t have any Quinta in the Douro – which means that they have to buy all their grapes and wine.
They also don’t have any visitor-center in Gaia for tourists… which makes the company not the visible. I must confess that the only time that I saw their wines outside of a super-market was at a tasting at the Port Wine Institute in Porto.
Their offering of Port Wine is made for the masses – they have only 5 different styles as I write this in the spring of 2018. They offer very basic white, Ruby and Tawny Ports and then a 10 and a 20 Year Old Tawny.
The average age of the white Port is 2.5 years; the Ruby and the Tawny are made of 4 year average old grapes… which shows that this is more for mass consumption than for quality.
The grapes for the white Port are Malvasía Fina, Códega, Gouveio.
The grapes for the Ruby and all 3 Tawnies are Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela, Tinta Barroca.
The only wine that I personally tasted was the 10 year old – which is very basic. Not bad – but absolutely not in a league with for example Quinta do Vallado or Quinta do Portal.
The company also produces from time to time LBVs and Vintage Ports – but on the official web-page no information about those is given. Very strange, as these are special categories that normally are very important for the reputation of a Port Wine producer. Companies are normally proud of them.
But sometimes you do see their Vintage Ports and LBVs – and while the normally on the lighter end of the scale they can be interesting to taste. What seems to help them a very long decanting times – talking often about 12-24 hours. Their wines change often quite dramatically during decanting time… and on their peak they can be quite decent.
You find also Vintage Port under the label “Duff Gordon” – these wines are ready for early drinking, they don’t have a tannin-structure that would justify to store them for decades.
Web-Page: www.osborne.es