Dow’s ages some of its best Ports for many years in seasoned oak casks in its ancient cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia. This prolonged time in barrel ensures that the wines take on soft almond and walnut aromas, losing the intense red colour of its youth but gaining immense delicacy, richness and profound intensity of flavour. The word ‘Colheita’ means ‘harvest’, for Port this word is used to describe a wine from a single year that has been aged in wood for a minimum of 7 years. Many of the Dow’s Colheitas available today have been aged for considerably longer and Dow’s has one of the finest collections of cask aged Ports in existence today. The family team of tasters regularly tastes all the old tawny Ports as they mature in the cellar. These wines are ‘racked’ two or three times a year and then returned to the original cask. When the tasters judge that the wine has reached the perfect state of maturity, the Port is carefully drawn off the cask and bottled. Due to the long and careful aging process no fining or filtration takes place. Read more
