“Barão de Vilar” is a brandnew company – but with an incredible long history.

Founded in 1996, it’s one of the newest Port Wine companies. However, by regulation a new Port Wine company has to have a huge stock of Port when they apply for the licence to become a Port Wine producer – and part of the stock for Barão de Vilar comes from Quinta do Noval. Why Quinta do Noval – easy… because a part of the van Zeller family that owned the Quinta do Noval until 1991 is now involved with Barão de Vilar. And the current wine maker, Álvaro van Zeller, started his career at Quinta do Noval.

Fernando Luis van Zeller had acquired a stock of Port Wine and gave it to his sons Fernando and Álvaro, who used this to found the company.  Álvaro van Zeller, the current wine maker at Barão de Vilar, started his career at Quinta do Noval. And thanks to this family Barão de Vilar has suddenly a long tradition – the van Zellers are the longest dynasty in the Port Wine and Douro Wine trade. They can trace their roots back to Jorge Fernandes, a wine merchant in the beginning of the 17th century. 14 generations of van Zellers have been involved in the Wine trade from the Douro Valley.

The title “Barão de Vilar” was given in the year 1836 by the queen of Portugal to Cristiano Nicolau Kopke and has remained since then in the family. But “Barão de Vilar” is not the only brand of the company – they also own the brands “Maynard” and “Feuerheerd”. Under these three brands Port Wine is sold by the company.

Let’s have a quick look at these three brands: All three of them produce the standard ports (Fine Ruby, Fine Tawny and Fine White Port). Maynard is the only brand of this company that offers also a “Extra Dry White Port”.

While “Barao de Vilar” offers Reserve Ruby and Reserve Tawny, we find only the Reserve Ruby at Maynard… and no reserve Port Wines at all in the Feuerheerd offering.

We see also small differences when we look at the aged Ports… “Barão de Vilar” offers 10 year and 20 year old Tawnies – plus an interesting 10 year old white Port. “Maynard’s” has no aged white Ports – but therefore a traditional 30 year old Port in addition to the 10 and 20 year old Tawnies. “Feuerheerd’s” has only the 10 year old Tawny in the offering – no other Tawnies with an indication of age.

The strength of all three brands are the available Colheitas – few other companies provide such an interesting offering.

“Barão de Vilar”:  1934, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1962, 1963, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1990, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005

“Maynard’s”:  1934, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1962, 1963, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1990, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005

“Feuerheerd’s”:  1934, 1951, 1962, 1963, 1970, 1977, 1982, 1990, 1997, 2001, 2003

I don’t know this for sure, but I assume that these old Ports are a part of the old Noval stock.

In addition to these fantastic years we find also a few White Colheitas: “Barão de Vilar” 1989 and 2004 and from “Maynard’s” the 2004.

The company is very new to the “Late Bottled Vintage” market and has bottled so far only the 2010 and 2011 LBV’s  both for the “Barão de Vilar” and the “Feuerheerd’s” brands.

Now we look at the “pinnacle” of the Port trade – the Vintage Port.

“Barão de Vilar” offers quite a lot of choices to the Port Wine lover: 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003,  2007, 2011, 2012

“Maynard’s” has also bottled quite a number of Vintage Port over the last years: 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2012 – which are exactly the years that “Barão de Vilar” has also declared…

“Feuerheerd” has considered however only one year so good that it wanted to bring a Vintage Port to the market: 2007.

 

 

The company is also producing still wines – which are sold under the names Barão de Vilar, Proeza and Zom. From those wines I like most the red “ZOM DOURO RESERVE”, which is made from Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and also from a field blend of old vines.

 

 

 

Headoffice & Cellars:

Rua Cândido dos Reis, 575

Webpage: www.baraodevilar.com