Wine Advocate
The 1997 Colheita Tawny Port is a blend of Touriga Franca (35%), Tinta Roriz (20%), Touriga Nacional (15%), Tinta Barroca (10%) and other typical, regional grapes sourced from Quinta Vale d’Agodinho. It comes in at 114 grams per liter of residual sugar. Bottled in May 2023 with a long cork, it was aged initially in 14,000-liter vats, then in 650-liter barrels. This was seen before in a 2014 release. Let’s check in. Years more in barrel and a new bottling can certainly help mold this into something else. This still seems a bit different, but it is in far better shape now and it smoothed out over a few days. It is spicy and relatively bright, a lot livelier than, say, the 2003 Colheita. There are some olives and herbs around the edges. The texture is pure velvet and rather sensual, though, and then it dribbles tasty fruit over the palate, showing some grip on the juicy finish. As it warms (it was originally quite cold), it becomes increasingly harder-edged and I was reminded why I sometimes had a quibble with this. It is a powerhouse at times with a touch of harshness. This still has its moments and a lot of them, especially based on when I encountered it during the time I had it open, but I couldn’t quite get to really loving this. As I always note, barring cork failures, these longer-aged Tawnies will last indefinitely, not that they need to be aged. Not imported just now, it runs around 65 euros in Portugal.