154 Port anD the Douro
Despite the ambiguity of the term ‘reserve’, reserve ruby is undoubtedly a much more
honest term than vintage character to describe wines which are deep in colour and full of
vibrant, primary fruit. There are impressive wines in this category, the best of which have
rich, ripe, spicy berry fruit and, depending on house style, bold tannins.
Late-bottled vintage (LBV)
LBV means what it says: a wine from a single year bottled between four and six years after
the vintage (compared to a maximum of two years for vintage Port). The style evolved
largely by default. In the lean years from the 1930s to the 1950s, it was not uncommon for
a vintage Port to remain in wood for rather longer than normal while the wine was awaiting
a buyer. Under the terms of subsequent legislation, many of these wines were technically
‘late bottled’. A number of shippers therefore claim to have invented LBV, but it seems that
the expression was first used by Noval when they applied it to a wine from the 1954 vintage.
Rutherford, Osborne and Perkin, then the London agents for Noval, listed it without any
qualifying explanation in the autumn of 1961. However David and Jack Rutherford were
reported to have described the wine as ‘a new vintage style of Port. No decanting necessary,
buy it from your off-licence, throw it in the back of your car and drink it that night’. Noval
may have been the first to produce a modern (filtered) LBV but the style was undoubtedly
popularised by Taylor. In 1955 they introduced a new style of wine which they termed
‘vintage reserve’. Taylor’s owned the rights to this name but with a clear gap in the market,
a new designation – Late Bottled Vintage – was officially sanctioned by the IVP in the mid-
1960s. Taylor’s 1965 LBV was launched in 1970. Subsequently adopted by all the main
shippers, LBV proved to be hugely successful in English-speaking markets where the word
‘vintage’ undoubtedly commands a premium.
Three different styles of LBV have now evolved. In order to qualify, all wines must
be a single harvest (but not necessarily a declared ‘vintage’), bottled between 1 July in
the fourth year after the respective harvest and 31 December in the sixth year. In order
to prevent the wines from turning oxidative and therefore tawny in style, those destined
to become LBVs are kept in large vats (wooden balseiros and stainless steel) prior to
bottling. Most producers initially followed Taylor’s, fining and/or filtering and cold-
stabilising their wines before bottling in order to prevent the formation of sediment and
thereby removing the need to decant. This has proved popular both with restaurateurs
and consumers but both the size of some of the lotes and heavy-handed filtration have
conspired to strip much of the character from the wine. As a result some LBVs are little
more than reserve ruby with a date attached.
During the 1990s there was a growing trend towards so-called ‘traditional’ LBV, bottled
without any filtration or treatment. The word ‘traditional’ was never officially sanctioned by
the IVDP and may no longer be used. Instead, the majority of these wines now bear the word
‘unfiltered’, either on the front or back label. These wines tend to be more full-bodied than
LBVs which have been fined and filtered and have the capacity to age for five or more years in
bottle. Often bottled with a driven cork (as opposed to a stopper cork), young unfiltered LBV
does not necessarily need decanting but the wine will eventually throw sediment in bottle.