Andy and Glenn are correct. The USA is a significant Colheita buyer as a category. I spoke to two Portuguese producers and they both told me that total volume of Colheita is by far and away sold in the USA and also in Portugal and a few of the Scandinavian countries.
Changing the name will not happen anytime soon. Nomenclature changes to categories took place officially in 2005 and although there had been a LOT of lobbying to have the name changed to Single Dated Tawny -- it was ruled against. In years past there have been British producers who made fine Colheitas but they did not want to use that term, so often times they used the words: Port of the vintage or more often RESERVE Port. Warre's made a fine 1937 and Delaforce has made a bunch too and they are not alone. However, in the UK Derek is correct.
Like in CA the vast majority of wine consumed is from CA and wine lists up and down the state are very heavy handed with pride in their own state's wines. Rightfully so and the same applies in Oregon and Washington and NY and Virgina. So to put this in a UK parallel universe, the British traditionalists who have always been well schooled and multi-lingual, choose to not one to try to pronounce Colheita or sell it. But the real reason is their imperialist view of their being the reason for Port. Of courese it is somewhat true afterall. However, their unwillingness in the UK to support the brands of the Portuguese is abysmal. So please do keep on buying your rubies and LBVs and VPs over in the UK and leave the great Colheitas for those with more open mindedness about Port categories. Afterall, if you can's say Colheita, you sure as heck should not attempt to drink it.
I just don't think it will happen here, even with a change of name. Possibly because the British taste is for ruby rather than tawny ports?
And may it continue on just that way. More for us! We're very pleased to have extraordinary importers of Colheitas on both coasts of the USA and in the middle of the country too. From two major importers I speak with once per week, their sales are doing great and the issue is keeping up with the increased demand for older vintages as that resource becomes further depleted.
Pretty strange in these days, but there are still a lot of towns ruled by ultra conservative religious zelots. But still 4 times as much Colheita is imported to the US than the UK. Thats a large amount and the US is the 4th largest consumer of Colheita's, behind Holland, Denmark, and Canada (The US is tied with Portugal in 4th place). 
). The World is more cosmopolitan now than a 100 years ago and mixing langauges to describe something is no big deal. :blah:
