Taylor’s have just released a single harvest tawny Port from 1863, the last great harvest before the spread of phylloxera in the Douro vineyards of northern Portugal, which devastated vines throughout Europe. Taylor’s described its release as a response to continuing demand for rare wood-aged Ports.

In recent years Taylor’s has seen this rare wood-aged Ports category emerge as a major area of development and four years ago it launched Scion, a €3,070 bottle of Tawny Port from 1855. Last year the house boosted its stocks of aged Tawny with the acquisition of Wiese & Krohn and last January it launched the first in its new series of 50-year-old single harvest, cask-aged Ports, releasing 2,000 bottles from 1964.