Fonseca marks 200th birthday

The Fonseca Port house has announced a worldwide programme of events and limited edition releases to celebrate its 200th anniversary.

Alongside the commemorative tastings being organised in key markets, including an event in London on 5 May, Fonseca confirmed plans to launch a Bicentenary Edition Crusted Port in honour of its own anniversary, as well as a Waterloo Edition Port to celebrate the Duke of Wellington’s victory in the same year.

The limited edition crusted Port – a style similar to vintage but using grapes from different years and usually blended to create an earlier drinking style – was bottled in 2008 and is presented by Fonseca as ready to drink now, but with scope to improve further in bottle.

The Waterloo Edition Port is described by Fonseca as “a full-bodied, robust and vigorous reserve blend”. Its creation celebrates the Duke of Wellington’s victory with an allied army of British and Portuguese soldiers over Napoleon’s French forces in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

The battle, which took place just 10 weeks after Fonseca began trading, ended 26 years of European conflict that had sealed a close alliance between Britain and Portugal.

Although now part of The Fladgate Partnership alongside Taylor’s and Croft, production at Fonseca is still overseen by chief winemaker David Guimaraens, whose family has been making Fonseca Ports since the 1860s.

Having produced its first vintage Port in 1840, the house has since built a high quality reputation for its distinctively rich, fleshy, generously fruited style.