NV Kranemann 20 Year Old Tawny Port

[Will W.]

Consumed at the property in September 2019, this bottling of the same year was appealing in the glass, evincing as it did hues of largely translucent, mid-strength tea, bereft of colour on the rim. The nose was presented with a pleasing mélange of wood, rose petals and black current, along with a hint of damp forest floor. This mix of youth and maturity was likewise evident at the palate. Brown sugar and cherry dominated at the front, giving way to lavender, nuts and gentle spices running to the back. The medium-long finish was characterised by gentle spice notes and well-integrated aguardiente, untroubled by residual tannins.

The wine was very well balanced, with an acidity level which cut efficiently through the 126 g/l of sugar. Overall, the Kranemann 20 Year Old proved to be very solid and might be said to compete readily with any like product in the second rank of this category. What is cannot do is go toe to toe with the superb 1999 Kranemann colheita, which for my money is the far better purchase at a like price from the same producer.

-91 points

[Mike K.]

What it cannot do is go toe to toe with the superb 1999 Kranemann colheita, which for my money is the far better purchase at a like price from the same producer.

I'm intrigued when a producer puts out a Colheita of approximately the same age as an age stated Tawny - and the Colheita is far better. I put the Kopke 40 and their 1978 Colheta in the same group. The 40 is very nice, but the 1978 is unquestionably the better wine, and at a lower price.

With the '20' or '40' Tawny, the blender can work their art. I would expect a superbly well crafted and balanced wine. But occasionally that's not the case.

Any insights?

[Andy Velebil]

What it cannot do is go toe to toe with the superb 1999 Kranemann colheita, which for my money is the far better purchase at a like price from the same producer.

I'm intrigued when a producer puts out a Colheita of approximately the same age as an age stated Tawny - and the Colheita is far better. I put the Kopke 40 and their 1978 Colheta in the same group. The 40 is very nice, but the 1978 is unquestionably the better wine, and at a lower price.

With the '20' or '40' Tawny, the blender can work their art. I would expect a superbly well crafted and balanced wine. But occasionally that's not the case.

Any insights?

Not always, but often, a Colheita is more expensive now days then a equivalent TWIOA. More so as they go up in age. With the latter one can blend in younger stuff to make a more affordable port in larger quantities. That can lead to it being not as complex as a single year Colheita.

[Mike K.]

I'm intrigued when a producer puts out a Colheita of approximately the same age as an age stated Tawny - and the Colheita is far better. I put the Kopke 40 and their 1978 Colheta in the same group. The 40 is very nice, but the 1978 is unquestionably the better wine, and at a lower price.

With the '20' or '40' Tawny, the blender can work their art. I would expect a superbly well crafted and balanced wine. But occasionally that's not the case.

Any insights?

Not always, but often, a Colheita is more expensive now days then a equivalent TWIOA. More so as they go up in age. With the latter one can blend in younger stuff to make a more affordable port in larger quantities. That can lead to it being not as complex as a single year Colheita.

That was one of my thoughts - that the TWIOA are made in larger quantities and thus you can't use all your best stocks - and make the best possible product. I drink a lot of Kopke, where in my experience the TWIOA are significantly more expensive. May not be true with other producers though.

An Aha! moment for me was at the Kopke visitors center in Gaia (best tasting experience for the general public IMO). I had selected the Kopke 40yo as part of my flight. The host suggested I also add the 1978. I considered it but declined. So she added it for free. Smart lady as I got to compare them side by side.

[Glenn E.]

I don't usually find one or the other to be "better" they're just different.

Colheitas are usually (but not always) more focused with a laser-like precision. Their acidity is often sharper (which plays into that perception of precision) and their flavor profiles are usually leaner.

TWAIOA are usually (but not always) more round and voluptuous. Their acidity is often milder - or blended to be that way - and I normally find their alcohol to be less perceptible. TWAIOA usually have "fatter" flavor profiles.

What I find most noticeable is that in order to compare to a 20 year old TWAIOA, a Colheita often needs to be 25 or 30 years old. I believe this is because a 20 year old TWAIOA has much older components in it, and those components give it more character than a 20 year old Colheita has developed. By the time you reach a 40 year old TWAIOA, though, a 40 year old Colheita has started to develop those characteristics on its own and so can often "keep up" with a 40 year old TWAIOA. (Provided you're not talking about a producer who puts some truly ancient Port into their TWAIOA... Brunheda, the "old" Romaneira 40, Mourao... basically the smaller producers.)

Kopke's 1978 Colheita is an interesting example, in part because it is so good. I think if you were to compare it to other Kopkes of a similar age, you might find that the beats all of them also. The 1978 is just special. That said, while I do like the Kopke 40, I generally consider it a "baseline" example of a good 40 year old. So I don't think that comparing the 1978 with the 40YO is representative of all Colheitas vs all 40 year old TWAIOA.

[Mike K.]

Thank you Glenn, great points.
Clearly more study is required on my part. I'll get right on it ...

[Will W.]

What it cannot do is go toe to toe with the superb 1999 Kranemann colheita, which for my money is the far better purchase at a like price from the same producer.

I'm intrigued when a producer puts out a Colheita of approximately the same age as an age stated Tawny - and the Colheita is far better. I put the Kopke 40 and their 1978 Colheta in the same group. The 40 is very nice, but the 1978 is unquestionably the better wine, and at a lower price.

With the '20' or '40' Tawny, the blender can work their art. I would expect a superbly well crafted and balanced wine. But occasionally that's not the case.

Any insights?

I was, Mike, asking myself a similar question: if the 20 year old tawny is not based on the 1999 colheita, which I suspect is the case given the quite distinct sweetness and acidity levels, what is the mother wine in the blend?

[Glenn E.]

What it cannot do is go toe to toe with the superb 1999 Kranemann colheita, which for my money is the far better purchase at a like price from the same producer.

I'm intrigued when a producer puts out a Colheita of approximately the same age as an age stated Tawny - and the Colheita is far better. I put the Kopke 40 and their 1978 Colheta in the same group. The 40 is very nice, but the 1978 is unquestionably the better wine, and at a lower price.

With the '20' or '40' Tawny, the blender can work their art. I would expect a superbly well crafted and balanced wine. But occasionally that's not the case.

Any insights?

I was, Mike, asking myself a similar question: if the 20 year old tawny is not based on the 1999 colheita, which I suspect is the case given the quite distinct sweetness and acidity levels, what is the mother wine in the blend?

I'm being very general with this, but if a producer decides that a particular wine is worthy of being bottled as a Colheita, I would think that they would normally do just that. Which means that it wouldn't be available to be used in any great quantity in the production of a TWAIOA because that would reduce the stocks that they would have available for sale as a Colheita.

The true art of the Master Blender is to take wines that might otherwise be thought of as lacking in some small way, and blend them together to create something special. Each wine provides something to the overall blend and helps cover for the "flaws" in the other wines.

Of course, the decision to bottle as a Colheita can come at any time, and can happen to a wine that has been used in the past as a blending component. One year, after just the right amount of time in wood, the wine suddenly blossoms and becomes something special so the producer decides to bottle it (or some of it) as a Colheita that year. Maybe prior to that year it was just another component that added character to a TWAIOA. Maybe after that year it goes back to being a component, too. But for a particular window of time it became something special and was bottled on its own.

Which is a very long way of saying that the mother wine of the Kranemann 20 Year Old may very well be a 1998 or 2000 that no one has heard of because it isn't bottled and sold separately. It's "job" is to be the mother wine of the 20 Year Old... at least for now.

[Andy Velebil]

What it cannot do is go toe to toe with the superb 1999 Kranemann colheita, which for my money is the far better purchase at a like price from the same producer.

I'm intrigued when a producer puts out a Colheita of approximately the same age as an age stated Tawny - and the Colheita is far better. I put the Kopke 40 and their 1978 Colheta in the same group. The 40 is very nice, but the 1978 is unquestionably the better wine, and at a lower price.

With the '20' or '40' Tawny, the blender can work their art. I would expect a superbly well crafted and balanced wine. But occasionally that's not the case.

Any insights?

I was, Mike, asking myself a similar question: if the 20 year old tawny is not based on the 1999 colheita, which I suspect is the case given the quite distinct sweetness and acidity levels, what is the mother wine in the blend?

A mother wine can be anything. You can have a 20 yr TWIOA that uses a 10 yr tawny as the base or one that uses an 18 yr as the base. TWIOA is only a style to represent what an equivalent 20 year Colheita would be like...and there's a HUGE amount of wiggle room in that.

Plus, the mother wine isn't always the same from year to year. Or the amount used can be very different based on the other years being blended in.

As for Colheita's, those grapes are quite often designated from before the grapes were picked, then fermented and stored to be Colheita's from day one. A vineyard manager and/or winemaker knows what their vines will give them in various growing seasons. They know the plot of vines over there makes great VP and that other plot over there makes great tawnys. Obviously there is some leeway in that, as weather and other factors can change things. This is a very simplistic answer to a much more complex situation that doesn't have one easy answer.