Taylor's VVOP White, for people who never rush a white Port

For most people, white Port is something you mix with tonic on a summer terrace. I like that too. But it has always bothered me that the white side of Port is treated as the junior one.

Taylor's has just answered that, in the most Taylor's way possible: with a white Port older than almost anyone who will drink it.

What VVOP means

VVOP stands for Very Very Old Port. To be called that, according to Taylor's, the wines must be more than eighty years old. This one, launched in July, is white, and Taylor's presents it as the first Very Very Old White Port.

It is a single blend made from exceptional lots aged in oak casks in the Taylor's cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia. Some of the wines go back to 1896. Taylor's calls it extremely rare, and the latest in a series of limited editions of very old, high quality Ports.

Eighty years in a cask is longer than most of the casks themselves will last. It is an act of faith across generations.

In the glass, according to Taylor's

The colour is bright golden orange with an amber core, bronze tones and delicate olive green reflections on the rim. That olive rim is the mark of extreme age.

On the nose: dried apricot, almond biscotti, candied orange peel and wild lavender, opening to jasmine and orange blossom.

In the mouth: toasted hazelnut, almond, tonka bean, blood orange, honeycomb and a touch of saffron, carried by vibrant acidity and a delicate salinity. The finish, they say, is extraordinarily long.

Serve it slightly cool, between 12 and 16 degrees. Keep the bottle standing, away from light and heat. It does not need decanting and it will not improve with more age. It is ready.

How I would drink it

Not as an aperitif, and certainly not with tonic. A wine like this deserves silence, a small glass and time. I would serve it at the end of a long dinner, after the cheese, with nothing beside it except perhaps a few toasted almonds.

And I would pour it for someone who thinks white Port is a summer drink. Their face is half the pleasure.

A few facts about Taylor's

• Taylor's was founded in 1692. It is one of the oldest Port houses still in activity, and one of the few that remains independent and family owned.
• The family company behind it, The Fladgate Partnership, also owns The Yeatman, the wine hotel in Vila Nova de Gaia with its view over Porto.
• Taylor's pioneered the Late Bottled Vintage category, and in recent years it has released very old single harvest Ports such as Scion and the 1896 Single Harvest.

Where to taste and buy it in Portugal

Start in Gaia. The Taylor's cellars receive visitors and tell more than three hundred years of Port history, ending with a tasting. The Yeatman is next door, if you want to make a weekend of it.

In Lisbon, Taylor's has its own shop and tasting room. For a bottle like this one, with very limited quantities, that is where I would ask first, or at the best specialist wine merchants.

My take

Old white Ports surprise almost everyone who tries them. They keep a freshness that old tawnies sometimes lose. Salt, citrus, wax, flowers. They feel alive.

What Taylor's has done here is give that style the recognition it deserves. Putting "VVOP" on a white Port is a statement: this is not a summer drink, it is a monument.

For people who never rush a white Port, and for those who have never taken one seriously, this is the bottle that ends the argument.