William Pickering 20 year old tawny port

Around this time last year I found myself getting interested in tawny port and wrote this piece about Quinta Santa Eufemia 20 year old which G brought back from Portugal. This year sadly he has not provided any such goodies, except the benefit of his advice that Berry Bros' William Pickering 20 year old was worth a look. I therefore took the plunge and ordered a bottle.


The William Pickering is made by Quinta do Noval, and coincidentally just before placing my order from BBR, I had succumbed to a bottle of the Quinta do Noval 10 year old tawny which Waitrose had on special offer, so it was down from about £18 to about £15. I didn't directly compare the two, but I did have them on subsequent evenings and can confirm that the William Pickering was streets ahead of the 10 year old. It had delicious and complex dried fruits, but was not too sweet, and I found it very much to my taste. Just the ticket on a cold December evening. G commented that it is "laughably underpriced" and I have to agree it is a bargain at £26.95 or a mere £24.25 if you buy six.

By comparison, Taylors 20 year old is going for around £35 a bottle or £22.80 on the Waitrose website which looks deeply suspicious to me - maybe it's a half bottle and they just haven't said so.