Taylor's Ports

Taylor Fladgate and Yeatman joined together to start making Port wine in 1692. In that time nations have been founded, have grown, crumbled and faded away, wars have been fought but Taylor's Port continues to be made by the same families who created their Port wine dynasty near 320 years ago.

Taylor's 10 Year Old Tawny Port is aged for 10 years in wooden casks and is then carefully bottled. And it should then be carefully drunk, to ensure that the warm, rich tastes of a combination of fruits is not wasted.

My wife and I have a special Christmas tradition. Every year just before Christmas we like to take some Stilton cheese, some mince pies  and some Taylor's 10 Year Old Tawny Port and settle down to some festive feasting whilst watching the 1951 version of Scrooge. Sometimes we also watch the George C. Scott version, filmed in Shrewsbury, too.

If we do not have any Taylor's 10 Year Old Tawny Port to hand, we instead will replace this with an extremely good substitute, some Taylor's Late Bottled  Vintage Port, which being younger that the Taylor's 10 Year old Tawny Port, has a different range of equally appealing fruity flavours, but is a little less well-developed.

This year my wife and I were both suffering from colds. My wife remarked: "Are you starting to feel better?" I had to acknowledge that I was starting to feel a  little warmed and that my cold was now nowhere near as oppressive as it had been, before I had started to drink the Port.

My wife took another sip of her Taylor's, smiled, and said in tones of extreme satisfaction: "No wonder doctors used to prescribe Port!"

Taylor's 10 Year Old Tawny Port costs from £19.99 and is available from E. H. Booths, Majestic, Morrison's, Sainsbury, Selfridges, Teso, Wholefoods Market and Waitrose.

Taylors Late Bottled Vintage Port should cost you from £13.99 a bottle and is widely available.