A Touriga Nacional-based blend of traditional Douro red varieties, grown on schist-sandstone soils at 600 meters of elevation.
Tawny port is a style marked by the oxidative characteristics of long aging in oak barrels. Casks of different years are then blended to achieve the desired age character – in Kopke’s case, the age on the label is the average age of all the wines in the blend.
The Thirty Years’ War raged in Europe, Portuguese explorers ascended the Amazon River for the first time, Louis XIV, the Sun King, was born, and Nicolau Köpke shipped his first bottles of wine northwards from the Douro Valley.
A merchant from Hamburg, Köpke arrived in the Douro two years earlier as Consul General of the Hanseatic League to Portugal. He continued his mercantile business, and it wasn’t until several years later, in 1781, that after purchasing a farm in the Douro, the Kopke House transitioned from a wine-buying company to a major producer. Port Wine gradually became the focus of the company and soon represented its primary business.
In 1922 Kopke acquired Quinta de São Luiz and the property has since become the place where all Kopke’s DOC Douro wines are produced. The great connoisseurs of Douro wines have always recognized this property as one of the most important in the region, for the quality of its soil and vines and for its cultural traditions. The vines are classified as A, the best in the Demarcated Region of the Douro and the produce of these Grade-A schistous terraces are vinified into a complete range of Ports. However, the company is particularly renowned for its emphasis on white and tawny wines, above all colheitas, or single-vintage tawnies, a category with which the firm is practically synonymous.