232 Port anD the Douro
Robertson
Established in 1847, Robertson Bros. once owned the famous Quinta do Roncão upstream
from Pinhão. In 1881 the company took over Rebello Valente, which it reserved as a brand
name for its renowned vintage Ports. After a number of changes of ownership, Robertson
was taken over by Sandeman in 1963. Since 1970 Rebello Valente Vintage Ports have been
disappointingly light in style and are no longer produced.
Romariz
Rua de Rei Ramiro 318, 4400-280 Vila nova de Gaia
tel. (351) 223 742 800
With a strong presence in Portugal and on the continent of Europe, Romariz is almost
unknown in English-speaking markets. The company was founded in 1850 by Manoel
de Rocha Romariz and spent many years trading with South America, especially Brazil. In
1966 the last of the Romariz family retired and sold the brand to Guimaraens & Co. It was
subsequently reconstituted as an independent company in 1987 by a British consortium
closely linked to Taylor. The company is now managed by Albino Jorge. Without any
vineyards of its own, Romariz is mostly a commodity business selling large volumes of
standard tawny under the Reserva Latina label, as well as Douro wines.
Quinta de la Rosa*
Quinta da Rosa – Vinhos do Porto, Lda
Quinta de la Rosa
5085-215 Pinhão
tel. (351) 254 732 254
http://www.quintadelarosa.com
Father and daughter, Tim and Sophia Bergqvist, are leading pioneers of single-quinta Port.
This A-grade property near Pinhão has been in the family since 1906, but by the early 1980s
the Bergqvists felt that the wines were underperforming. Helped by the change in legislation
in 1986, the family wrested control of the winemaking from Sandeman (who used La Rosa
for Robertson/Rebello Valente) and began to produce their own single-quinta vintage Port.
Despite being soft and relatively early maturing, their first vintage (1988) was a significant
improvement on wines from the 1970s and early 1980s. All the grapes for La Rosa’s vintage
Port are now trodden in stone lagares before fermentation whereas Sandeman used the ill-
fated movimosto system (see page 132). With increasingly rigorous selection, recent vintages
have gained greatly in stature and, depending on the year, are now wines for drinking in
the medium to long term. 1997 and 2000 are the best wines that La Rosa has produced to
date. In 1999 a super-concentrated vintage Port was bottled from Vale do Inferno, the most
sheltered part of the Quinta with some of the oldest vines.
La Rosa works on the ‘chateau principle’, declaring a vintage in all but the poorest of years. At
the time of writing, 1993 is the only year to have been bypassed. With one of the largest traditional
armazens in the Douro, La Rosa also acts increasingly like a Port house in its own right. The
Bergqvists ship an increasingly broad range of wines spanning standard ruby and tawny, a robust