Taylor’s is one of the oldest Port Wine companies – and easily also one of the most important ones.
Some people might even say that they are THE most important one – and if your last name isn’t Symington you might want to agree.
This article got quite lengthy… so here are the three main-points:
- The History of Taylor’s
- The Wines of Taylor’s
- Taylor’s for Tourists
The History of Taylor’s
It is amazing what this company has done over the last 325+ years. You don’t need to be a young start-up company to innovate – sometimes it is the old companies that invent themselves over and over again and are therefore very successful.
Just looking at the achievements of Taylor’s over the last years, a few major points come to my mind:
- Opening the wine-themes hotel THE YEATMAN in Gaia/Porto
- Bottling the SCION, a very, very old Tawny of more than 150 years]
- Issuing every year a Single Year harvest (Colheita) for people that turn 50 that year
- Re-purchasing and remodeling the VINTAGE HOUSE in Pinhão
- Buying the Infante do Sagres Hotel in Porto
- Remodeling the Port Wine Lodge in Gaia and offering an amazing audio-tour
- Opening the visitor center at Quinta da Roêda in Pinhão
- A major new undertaking in Gaia with investments between EUR 80 – 100 million will create the “World of Wine” – a very ambitious museum project that will change the face of Gaia forever.
The only other company that is able to keep more or less up with Taylor’s are the Symingtons – but what differentiates the companies currently is the complete focus of Taylor’s on the tourist boom that Portugal is experiencing since a few years. They venture into the High-End-Tourism – and those are the people that also buy the High-End-Wines. The strategy seems to be working very well.
However, if you are too successful, then not everybody likes you – and that is also something that Taylor’s is experiencing. Taylor’s has become one of the more controversial Port Wine companies over the last decades.
Let’s start at the very beginning – in 1692: Job Bearsly, owner of “The Ram Inn” in London, left his home-country and travelled to Portugal to buy wine. Back then the action didn’t happen in Porto/Gaia but rather more to the North, in Viano do Castelo and Moncao. Job established himself with the British merchants and it was his oldest son Peter that would continue with the business in Portugal and become even the British Consul in Viana do Castelo. While most shippers didn’t venture out into the interior of Portugal he wasn’t afraid to travel to the places where the wine was growing. He started to get interested in the Douro wines – while his father had only traded in the wines coming closer from the coastal region in the Minho part of Portugal.
Peter had 4 sons – and three ended up in the Port Trade – whereby his son Bartholomew showed the most passion for the Douro Valley and he is believed to be the first British wine merchant to have bought a property in the Douro. In 1744 he bought the “Lugar das Lages” – which still belongs to Taylor’s. Taylor’s is so proud of this that they name for their premium ruby Port is based on this property: “First Estate”. Bartholomew connected very well with the local wine growers and was able to secure very good grapes for Taylor’s year after year. But unfortunately he passed away relatively young… and it was his brother Francis that took over the management of the company, which by now was based in Oporto. He had no real choice, as one of the brothers had moved to London and the other had declared bankruptcy. Francis was leading the company from 1744 to his death in 1805 – which was one of the most interesting times to be in the Port Trade, as the Marques de Pombal had incorporated the “Cia. Geral da Agricultura das Vinhas do Alto Douro”, to give the government absolute control over the Port trade. There were a lot of tensions between the Portuguese and foreign wine shippers around that time – and Francis was able to steer the company through those years. While the merchants first opposed the massive powers of this government body (which had the monopoly to buy and sell all Port Wine) the system was working – and as everybody earned well, the tension soon ebbed down.
But the real challenge came shortly after he had died and Napoleon and his troops invaded Portugal. Francis Bearsley died without a son who got take over the company – but he made three of his son-in-laws to partners (he had together five daughters). However, all these man, while being very distinguished members of the society, didn’t show much interest in the company – and all of them picked London as their center of life rather than Porto.
Special circumstances require special solutions… England helped Portugal to fight against Napoleon – and so the company had no illusions about its faith if Napoleon would enter into Porto. They would lose all their possessions. Luckily they knew a trustworthy American, Joseph Camo. The partners decided to transfer all assets in Portugal to this person to protect them from Napoleon, as it was believed that he wouldn’t confiscate American belongings. They could not have picked a better person than Joseph. He was a very courageous person and saved the company during those difficult times. He bought wine still 6 days before Napoleon’s troops invaded Porto – and 21 days after they had been defeated, he was back and started again the business. While all the “real” partners were in London, he was the only person in Porto on the ground. He became one sixth of the company for his services. However, he was a very head-strong individual and was very good at ignoring instructions from London.
In 1812, when things were calm and good again, he resigned and changed careers… which left the company again with no qualified member to run it.
And this is now the moment when the Taylor’s family comes into the game. Joseph Taylor had worked in the London office of and knew everything about the day-to-day-business and as he spoke also Portuguese he was the ideal person to come to Porto to run the company. He was made partner in 1814 – and as the remaining family members run in 1824 and 1825 in financial problems in England, they all resigned from the company – and by 1826 Joseph Taylor was the sole partner of the company.
After more or less of a decade he developed health issues and needed to look for successors. Having no suitable family members, he looked back home towards England and chose two new partners: Morgan Yeatman, a wine merchant and customer of Taylor’s in Dorchester and John Fladgate, a wine merchant from London. Both moved to Porto.
John Fladgate was a very interesting and very important part of the history of the company. He was made a partner in 1838 and the firm now operated under the name “Taylor Fladgate & Yeatman”. His passion was really the viticulture, the planting of vines. Therefore he spent a lot of time in the Douro Valley. The largest contribution to the success of Taylor’s was first the purchase of “Quinta da Roêda” in Pinhao in 1844. All was great – until odium struck in 1851 and then of course the phylloxera after 1872. John Fladgate experimented with other businesses to compensate for the loss from the wine trade (like farming silk worms in the Douro Valley…). He spend a lot of time to analyse and to solve the phylloxera problem and it was this work that got him the title “Barão da Roêda”.
Life never goes as we plan it, does it… and in 1862 he had bought the Quinta da Roeda from Taylor’s for his own use… and it was his plan to pass it on to his only son Francis. However, when his son died at the age of 49 he decided to sell the Quinta to “Croft” (he got the counter value of GBP 7,000 for it in 1889). While this was the end of people with the name “Fladgate” in the Port Wine trade, his legacy still lingers on… because he had 11 daughters. One of them (Catherine Mary) married the son of famous Barao Forester; the other (Florence Helen) married Pedro Goncalves Guimareas, partner of Fonseca; a third (Janet) married Charles Wright, a manager of “Croft”.
While John Fladgate took care of the wine production, Morgan Yeatman stayed in Porto and focused on sales and business development. A perfect solution: two committed partners with different passions.
Morgan Yeatman died in 1849 and his son joined the firm as partner… whose name was also Morgan Yeatman.
In 1893 the company bought the Quinta de Vargellas – which was an amazing move and helped strongly to establish the great reputation that Taylor’s holds these days. The Quinta had been neglected; the consequences of phylloxera and the many bankruptcies in the Douro Valley were still palpable and enabled Taylor’s to acquire this once outstanding estate at a reasonable price.
There was a lot of work to be done… and again Taylor’s had the luck that two very different partners looked after it. The children of Morgan Yeatman, the second Morgan Yeatman that is, Harry and Frank lead the company into the 20th century. Frank stayed nearly all his life in the Douro Valley and looked to improve the wines, while his brother Harry worked mainly in London and took care of the sales-related activities.
The First World War happened, and the two sons of Harry enlisted and got severely injured in the war. Afterwards, they didn’t want to take over the share of their father, and suddenly Frank was the sole shareholder of the company. The office in London got closed – from now on the company was managed solely from Portuguese soil.
The next generation that came to work for Taylor’s were Frank’s son Dick and Stanley Yeatman, Dick’s cousin. Again, it was a great team that helped Taylor’s to build on its past successes. Frank with all his experience (in the end, he would have been involved in 50 harvests) and the two young man (they joined at the ages of 19 and 21) with all their new ideas how to improve things. One of their first and major achievements was the replanting of Vargellas in varietal blocks, around 1927. Until then, the Douro vineyards had been planted as “field blends” – many different grape varieties grew next to each other. That made it of course difficult to find the right moment for the harvest, as some grapes varieties mature faster than others. Taylor’s was one of the first companies that were able to research how to blend wines of single varietals – which gave them an advantage, starting in the 1930s.
They also launched the Dry White Port in 1935 and are still one of the most important producers of White Ports.
In the 1940s several things happened that shaped the company. First, there was the Second World War, with all its difficulties. While Portugal managed to stay out of the war, the Port exports declined dramatically.
After the war, the other countries focused on rebuilding their cities rather than drinking Port – and so most missed one of the greatest Port Wines ever made: The 1945 Vintage of Taylor’s. This wine cemented Taylor’s reputation as makers of great Vintage Port.
Taylor’s had done quite well in the first 40 years of the century and the partners were quite well off. Other Port Wine companies struggled during the Second World War. Especially one company had problems: Guimaraens & CO., the makers of the famous Fonseca Ports. The 1930s had already been difficult for them, and now in the 40s they would have gone out of business, if their owner Frank Guimaraens wouldn’t have received several loans from his friend Frank Yeatman. On May 19th, 1949 Taylor’s finally bought Guimaraens & Co. – and had now two established Vintage Port brands with stellar reputation. As the wine critic James Suckling wrote, these were the Rolls-Royce and Bentley of the Port Trade.
1949 was the year that Frank Yeatman retired and the two cousins Dick and Stanley took officially over. Eleven years later, in 1960, Stanley passed away and Dick bought his shares and became for a short period the sole owner of the company. But as he got older, he had to think about the future of Taylor’s – and he offered in 1961 a partnership two Bruce Guimaraens (who had been involved with FONSECA) and Huyshe Bower, a descendent from the Yeatmans that had joined the company two years earlier.
However, when Dick died in 1966, the company was shaken to its core. The majority stake of Taylor’s was inherited by Dick’s widow, Beryl Yeatman. But she didn’t know how to run such a large company – and while Taylor’s and Fonseca had made outstanding wines for many decades, the sales had been lagging. The company was vulnerable.
She needed to make a decision: to sell the company and to find somebody to run it. When we look today at Taylor’s we see a powerhouse – an enormous company, with amazing resources and market share. But in 1966 Taylor’s was a different place. When Dick died, the company had only one telephone. The few office clerks had to share three typewriters. The company had no debt – but also made very little money, as the sales were still low.
When Alistair Robertson got the offer from his Aunt Beryl, he was perfectly prepared to take on the challenge. His family had ties to the Port trade for several generations, as his great-grandfather and then also his grandfather had been managing directors at Smith Woodhouse. He himself had developed a talent for sales and marketing in the brewing industry and had the ability to feel that the market wanted something new from the Port trade.
His partner Huyshe Bower was also dedicated to sales and marketing and started to work on the development of the international trade. While Taylor’s had historically been very strong in England they started to increase the sales efforts in other countries.
Taylor’s is one of the companies that claim that they invented the Late Bottled Vintage – their first LBV was from 1965, launched in 1970. This was a game changer, for the company and for the trade. The LBV filled the massive gap between Vintage Port and Ruby Ports – and this turned the company around. Together with other innovations (like launching the Tawnies with an indication of age, 10, 20, 30 and 40 year old Tawnies) the company grew and prospered.
In 1974 the Quinta de Terra Feita was bought – Taylor’s had used their grapes already for a century but by buying the estate they also gained control over the growing of the vines. In 1998 Quinta do Junco was added to the portfolio of Taylor’s.
Things became very dynamic starting in 1990. The son of Bruce Guimaraens, David, joined the company in this year – and what he start he had… he was responsible for the 1994 Vintage Ports both of Taylor’s and Fonseca – and both got 100 points from the Wine Spectator magazine and both shares the 1st rank in Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list in 1997. You can’t have a better start than this.
Another very import moment for the company was also in 1994 the arrival of Adrian Bridge in Porto. Having married the oldest daughter of Alistair, Natasha, after a career in the British Army and as Investment Banker in London, he knew how to take decisive action and how to work with numbers… He proved his value in the second half of the 1990s when he promoted the Brand Taylor’s internationally and was the logical successor when Alistair declared his retirement on January 1st, 2000. Adrian became the new Managing Director – and he has shaped the company more than most of his predecessors.
It started in 2001 when he bought the Port firm CROFT from Diageo and by doing this, acquired also the iconic Quinta da Roêda.
The name of the company was changed to “The Fladgate Partnership” (TFP) – to honor the family that had been involved in all three Port Houses (Taylor’s, Fonseca, Croft).
In 2007 the Quinta da Eira Velha was acquired at a bargain price (50 hectares of A rated vineyards for EUR 3.25 million). In 2013 Taylor’s bought Wiese & Krohn – and with it came an incredible stock of outstanding old tawnies. This is a major purchase and helps Taylor’s to establish themselves as one of the leading high-end-tawny companies – and I must confess that I am surprised that this acquisition isn’t even mentioned on Taylor’s web-page.
But the most visible development of the last years has been the opening of the Yeatman Hotel in Vila Nova de Gaia. This iconic wine-themed hotel has come at the right time to take full advantage of the booming tourism in Porto. To add to their focus on high-end-tourism the company has also acquired the “Hotel Infante Sagres” in Porto and bought back the “Vintage House Hotel” in Pinhão (which the firm had opened in 1998 and sold in 2002).
In the summer of 2017 Adrian Bridge announced the launch of the work to create “The World of Wine” in Gaia – a very ambitious project which will change the face of Gaia. As less and less wine is stored in the old warehouses in crowded Gaia, more and more space was available for other purposes. Taylor will convert an area of 30.000 square meters into a theme park, focus on everything wine and Port related. Several museums will be built, also restaurants and shops. It is expected that this project will cost around EUR 100 million and it is hoped for that the new facilities will attract more than 500,000 visitors a year.
The Fladgate Partnership seems to get it done – to create amazing wines while at the same moment also getting involved in the up-and-coming Portuguese tourism industry. The next years will continue to be interesting.
The wines of Taylor’s
Taylor’s has one of the most complete offerings in the World of Port Wine – which makes it very difficult to write about them. The internet feels nearly too small to store so much information.
The good news is that Taylor’s focuses only on Port Wine – while many Port producers have started over the last decade to add table wines to their offering, Taylor’s has stayed loyal to the Port Wine and as it seems it is not planned to produce non-Port Wine.
Starting with the White Ports. In 1934 Taylor’s introduced the CHIP DRY WHITE PORT – which was a huge success and generations have used it as an aperitif. Lately it is also used to make PORTONICS, a very refreshing summer drink (one part of Chip Dry White Port, 2 parts tonic water, some ice and a sprig of mint or twist of lemon). As nice as this drink is – it is a wine for immediate consumption and won’t improve in the bottle.
This is a good wine for people that don’t like Port Wine very much, as it might be too sweet for them. Well, for the people that do like their wines a little bit sweeter, Taylor’s provides also a “normal” White Port. The difference of the normal White Port and the Chip Dry White Port is the fermentation period – the dry White matures longer than the normal White, therefore more sugar in converted into alcohol and the wine isn’t so sweet anymore.
Looking at the Ruby Ports: Taylor’s of course has the usual entry level Fine Ruby and the slightly better Select Reserve. However, the interesting level begins with the “First Estate Reserve”. While the other wines are just two years old when they are filtered and bottled, this wine matures slightly longer and is much more interesting. A very fruity wine; very nice to drink. The name is to commemorate the purchase of the first property, the Casa dos Alambiques at Lugar das Lages, done in 1744. This is a premium Ruby, to be compared with Fonseca’s Bin 27 and Six Grapes of Graham’s.
As mentioned earlier, the claimed invention of the Late Bottle Vintage Port was a game changer for the company. The consumers liked to have a wine that was so much better than the normal Ruby Ports – and that they could drink when they bought and didn’t need to store it for years or decades.
The first LBV from Taylor’s was the 1965, bottled in 1970. Since then, an LBV from Taylor’s has always been a safe bet. Every year a new LBV is released, and they are all well-made and easy to drink. The LBVs are filtered – therefore they won’t improve with age and should be consumed quickly. For me, a bottle of Taylor’s LBV is always a nice gift to bring… personally I like the 2011. While it is for example more and more difficult and expensive to find Vintage Ports from 2011 (an amazing year), it’s easy to find for a very reasonable price the LBV 2011 from Taylor’s.
Looking at the Vintage Ports: Well, while in general investing in Port isn’t really a great way to make money, the Vintage Port of Taylors is always able to receive decent money at auctions. The name Taylor’s stands for quality and buyers honor that. There are a few really amazing vintages… If money isn’t a problem, then I would look first for the 1927. That is for sure one of the 10 wines that are still on my bucket list. Then the 1945 and the 1948… then the 1963 and 1966… and finally the really outstanding 1970 and 1977… plus the 1994, which got the #1 rank of Wine Spectator Magazine.
From this Millennium, the 2007 and 2011 seem to be quite interesting… but as every great Port, they shouldn’t be opened yet. A few more decades, and they can provide so much more pleasure…
These are all Vintage Ports that are sold as “Taylor’s”. These are normally pretty close to the best Vintage Ports that money can buy.
But then there are years when the quality isn’t so great that Taylor’s prefers to launch single Quinta Vintages instead. Luckily the company has a whole portfolio of first class Quintas. They launch Vintages with the names Quinta de Vargellas and Quinta da Terra Feita. Since 1995 Taylor’s is also bottling in exceptional year the “Vargellas Vinha Velha”. This is one of the rarest and most expensive Ports of every declaration. The wine comes from vines that are between 80 and 120 years old. Only approx. 2% of the total production of Vargellas make it into this wine. Only 7 times has since Vintage been launched so far. Because it’s a really outstanding wine and very rare, this is of course a collector’s item and much more expensive than the “normal” Vargellas and even the “normal” Taylor’s.
Quinta da Terra Feita saw the last launch in 2008 – since then it has been quiet around this producer.
If I have to pick, my top label would be the “Vargellas Vinhas Velha”, then afterwards “Taylor’s”, then “Vargellas” and then “Terra Feita”.
Here are the years that Vintages were declared since 1900:
Taylor’s: 1900; 1904; 1906; 1908; 1912; 1917; 1920; 1922; 1925; 1927; 1935; 1938; 1942; 1945; 1948; 1955; 1960; 1963; 1966, 1970; 1975; 1977; 1980; 1983; 1985; 1992; 1994; 1997; 2000; 2003; 2007; 2009; 2011; 2016
Quinta de Vargellas: 1905; 1907; 1912; 1914; 1917; 1925; 1934; 1937; 1948; 1952; 1957; 1958; 1961; 1964; 1965; 1967; 1968; 1969; 1972; 1974; 1976; 1978; 1982; 1984; 1986; 1987; 1988; 1991; 1995; 1996; 1998; 2001; 2002; 2004; 2005; 2008; 2012; 2015
Vargellas Vinha Velha: 1995; 1997; 2000; 2004; 2007; 2009; 2011
Quinta de Terra Feita: 1988; 1995; 1996; 1999; 2001; 2005; 2008
Fun Fact: The Fladgate Partnership always announces the Vintage Port declaration on St. George’s Day (April 23rd). A nice tradition that continues to please the English consumers…
After so much information about the Ruby Ports, it’s time to look at the Tawnies.
Like every producer, Taylor’s offers a simple Tawny which has matured 3 years in oak barrels. While it’s nice to drink, it’s also nothing special… but luckily we find some of the most amazing high-end tawnies in Taylor’s offering. It starts with the typical 10, 20, 30 and 40 year old Tawnies with an indication of age… The wines are all well done, and my preferred wines of this selection are the 20 and the 40 year old. But then we come to the Colheita-Ports… which are called Single Harvest Ports (we are English) and there we find some amazing wines. When Taylor’s bought the brand and wines from Wiese & Krohn they acquired a lot of old Tawnies… and the company did a marvelous move. The 50th birthday is one of the most important days, isn’t it? And we spend a lot of money on gifts and for parties, don’t we? So the company now launches every year a Single Harvest Port from the Harvest exactly 50 years ago. Perfect idea. As far as I know, these wines come all from the Krohn purchase. They are just amazing, and being born in 1966, I am of course biased and I believe that this wine is the best of the 1965-1968 range that was released so far.
But then there are two wines, that are so incredible good… the 1863 Single Harvest (which is also a Krohn-wine) and then the Scion… The Scion started in my view the current trend towards really old wines. It is an incredible wine, for me it was a live changing wine. Before I liked Vintage Ports and Tawny Ports – after tasting the SCION I knew that no Vintage will ever be able to trouch me like this Tawny did. There is a little village called Presegueda in the Douro Valley, an little bit North-East of Regua. A family took care of 6 barrels of wine that were supposed to be made in 1855. This wine wasn’t registered with the Port Wine Institute and therefore no “official” paper-work exists, just the records of the family. The family decided to sell the wine, when it was approached by David Guimaraens. Originally it was thought to be used within the 40 year old Tawny for Taylor’s… but this wine was too balanced, too great to be blended with younger wines and Adrian Bridge had the idea to launch this wine as a special bottling. 1,400 hand-blown, crystal decanters were ordered and the wine was bottled. Before Taylor’s contacted the Port Wine Institute and had the wines analysed. While nobody can say for certain from which year this wine is, the data all point towards the correctness of the story from the family. The sugar level, the acidity, even the lead concentration all points towards a wine of that age. As there were no official records, the wine can’t be sold as 1855 Single Harvest… it was instead sold as “very old” Port. I had the pleasure to drink it three times in my life – and each time an amazing memory was created. This wine is very pricey – but the price is worth it. It is just divine. In the past you could order a glass of it at the Taylor’s Lodge for EUR 120 – but I don’t know if it is still available.
Taylor’s for Tourists
After reading so much about Taylor’s we now feel like we should finally try a few of their wines and to visit the company in person. Well, by far the best way to more about Taylor’s is a visit to their lodge in Gaia. It’s an amazing place, beautifully located (okay, it’s pretty high on a steep hill… the older I get, the more I like to get there by car rather than walking from the Cais da Gaia, especially on hot summer-day …). When you enter the lodge, a really interesting audio-tour is waiting for you. Feel free to read about my last visit: The Lodge of Taylor’s.
After the tour don’t miss to taste a few of the wines in the lodge. There is a beautiful garden with some tables outside – and many more inside. The perfect environment to delve into the world of Taylor’s. The staff is very friendly and alert. There also a very good restaurant attached to the lodge – the view is just amazing. One of my preferred places in Porto.
Unfortunately none of the Quintas associated with Taylor’s is open to the public. Neither Vargellas nor Terra Feita or Quinta do Junco receive visitors. Which is a real pity, as alone the treading of grapes at Vargellas is a reason to visit the Quinta. I had the luck to be there during harvest time and to see the fun that the young students had to work the wine in the “Lagares” (stone basin) was really a beautiful sight. There was music and dancing… and as there were no tourists, it was clear that this isn’t show but it was the real thing. While it is hard work to harvest grapes and then to tread them in the evening, the mood and spirit was just amazing. A great evening.
If you want to learn more about TFP, then you can visit Quinta do Panascal (Fonseca) or Quinta da Roêda (Croft). But Taylor’s itself hasn’t yet any property available in the Douro for tourists to visit.
Opening Hours: Monday to Sunday: 10h – 19h30 – last entry at 18H
Rua do Choupelo, nº 250
4400-088 Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal
GPS Coordinates: 41.13394, -8.61435
Tel. +351 223 772 956 / +351 223 772 950
Fax. +351 223 742 899
Facebook: www.facebook.com/taylors.port.wine
Web-Page: www.taylor.pt