Barros Port, 1996

Colheita Port
Gold Medal - Decanter 95 Points.

Description and Reviews:
Vivid golden colour. Rich and elegant nose, combining the dried fruits aromas with the aromatic wood notes. Soft and silky in the taste, full with ripe figs and sweet flavours. A sensation of depth, in an elegant and distinctive style. Perfect and overwhelming finish.

Colheita, or single harvest ports, are aged in the barrel. Contrast this with vintage ports which are aged in the bottle and only have a short drinking window after opening. Colheita ports have had air working on them through the cask during all the years of ageing, giving them an open-life of a month or longer. Lighter and more delicate than vintage ports, the colheita ports are immediately understandable and enjoyable to the novice port drinker and an on-going pleasure to the experienced.

Enjoy colheitas slightly chilled, as an aperitif or at the end of the meal with desserts, cheese, nuts and dried fruit.

Reviews:
Decanter World Wine Awards 2020 - Gold Medal (95 Points)
Burnt caramel aromas with dried cranberry notes lead to lovely bittersweet complexity on the palate. Spice and baked earth, and a fresh butterscotch and malt finish.

92 Points Mark Squires - Wine Advocate
The 1996 Colheita Tawny Port, bottled in 2015, is a field blend with 102.9 grams per liter of residual sugar. This adds a layer of classic, "old Tawny" concentration of flavor to the finish, making it far more complex than Sogevinus' fresher 2000 Cálem, also reviewed. The finish is laced with notes of Brandy and just a hint or two of molasses. Of the youngsters, this is the more intriguing because of its complexity, although the Cálem is the sexier. This understated 1996 is also a bit firmer in the mid-palate and lingers longer, showing notable grip on the finish. Its tightly-wound demeanor makes it very focused as well. Reasonable minds might differ between the styles of the two, but I'd give this elegant Colheita the nod. Don't misunderstand, by the way--while this is the more intellectually interesting of the two (relative) youngsters, it is also quite delicious. Mark Squires - 2016 Wine Advocate