Sandeman 10 Year Tawny Port - 2 Glasses

Sandeman Porto Tawny 10 Years Old is a vibrant premium aged wine, where the balance of ripe fruit and oak aged intensity, highlight Sandeman´s quality. This beautiful gift pack comes with 2 Sandeman-brand glasses.

20

15

Tinta Amarela, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Tinto Clo, Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional

The intense red tawny colour with shades of brick, typical of this style of aged yet youthful wine, anticipates the elegant and complex aroma, combining ripe fruit, jam and nuts, with hints of vanilla and raisins. In the mouth, Sandeman Porto Tawny 10 Years Old is a most flavoursome wine, full-bodied and appealing, with a persistent finish.

It all started in 1790 when the 25-year-old son of a Scottish prosperous cabinetmaker asked for a £300 loan from his father to set up as a wine merchant in London. This ambitious young man was George Sandeman, the founder of Sandeman, who ended up establishing one of the world's leading Port and Sherry wine businesses.At a time when brand names' were unheard of and wines were shipped in barrels not in bottles, Sandeman literally started to brand' the wood casks with its initials GSC (George Sandeman & Co.) using a hot iron to give the wine a pioneering signature' that guaranteed its quality and origin. Sandeman iconic image The Don' was created in 1928, and today, the Sandeman Ports are becoming every bit as famous as the image of the Don.The new Sandeman winery, built in 2007 with significant investment from the Guedes family, is based at the breathtakingly beautiful Quinta do Seixo, situated on the south bank of the Douro, just downstream from Pinhlo. The winery is perched on top of a hill that is garlanded by terrace after terrace of vines, some of which are over 100 years old.

Grapes destined for the Aged Tawny Ports need to have great intensity of flavour in order to stand up to many years of ageing in barrel. The Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela, Tinta Barroca, Tinto Clo and Touriga Nacional grapes which make it into the Sandeman 10-Year-Old Tawny are sourced from prime vineyard sites in the Cima Corgo sub-region of the Douro, including Sandeman's spectacular Quinta do Seixo estate. A large proportion of fruit from old vines is used in the blend as these produce lower yields of grapes with very concentrated flavours. The soil in the Douro Valley is schist - a slate-like metamorphic rock that fractures vertically, allowing the vine roots to dig deep to access water and nutrients to sustain them through the hot Douro summers. The vines are planted on terraces supported by dry stone walls on the steep hillsides sloping down to the Douro river. Given the steep gradients and the inaccessibility for machinery, vineyard operations and harvesting are carried out by hand.

Upon arrival at the winery, the grapes were destemmed and gently crushed. Fermentation took place in granite lagares with vigorous treading to extract the ideal levels of colour, flavour and tannin before fortification. The ferment was closely monitored to determine the ideal moment to halt the fermentation by fortifying with grape spirit, leaving some of the grapes' natural sugars. The wines remained in the Douro until the spring following the harvest when they were transported downstream to the historic Sandeman cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia for oxidative ageing in oak barrels. The 10-Year-Old Tawny is a carefully crafted blend of wines between 9 to 12 years of age.

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