For three decades, the FINE+RARE Group has stood at the forefront of the fine wine industry and is now evolving from a pioneering marketplace into a global platform that seamlessly connects collectors, connoisseurs and producers. With a 750-million-dollar portfolio under management, we are not just curators of the world’s most sought-after wines – we are architects of a digital, data-driven future for the industry.  
From Exchange to Platform: Scaling for the Future  At the FINE+RARE Group, we are engineering the future of fine wine trading, transitioning from a traditional exchange into a scalable global platform. This evolution mirrors the best practices in technology and digital marketplaces – designed to enhance efficiency, drive growth and streamline operations. With a single proprietary platform, we are not just connecting buyers and sellers; we are creating an ecosystem where access, agility and control are redefining the experience of fine wine buying, selling and storing.  In January 2025, we completed the core foundation of this platform, an advanced infrastructure capable of handling complex integrations, proprietary payments and data-driven customer insights. This centralized approach allows for rapid scaling while maintaining authenticity and exclusivity.  Our New Trading Platform in the United States  In April, we will complete the U.S. deployment and re-launch our back-end technology stack as well as our state-of-the-art digital front-end platform designed to enhance the fine wine buying and selling experience to our Vinfolio customers.   Key features include an intuitive Portfolio management system that offers a single-page cellar view, real-time market data integration, and wine trading capabilities, allowing clients to set their own trading prices and manage their collections with unprecedented ease.   The platform also boasts improved search and filter functionalities, enabling users to swiftly navigate a vast selection of products and access in-depth producer and region profiles. Additionally, the enhanced Editorial section provides rich content to assist clients in making informed purchasing decisions. These technological advancements ensure a more efficient, personalized and insightful journey for collectors worldwide.  Marketplace Dominance: The Ultimate Fine Wine Destination  Our marketplace model sets the FINE+RARE Group apart as the leading fine wine platform, offering collectors unmatched access to the rarest bottles. With a curated selection spanning Bordeaux, Burgundy and beyond, we provide a single-point solution for sourcing, valuation and sales.  Our global reach is a strategic advantage. With operations in the United States, United Kingdom, Asia and Europe, we facilitate 24-hour trading and logistics, ensuring that every bottle finds its rightful place in the hands of discerning buyers. Data is powering our marketplace, enhancing customer-product matching and refining real-time pricing strategies.  The Power of Global Integration  Through strategic mergers and acquisitions, including our 2022 merger with Vinfolio, we have expanded our reach into the U.S. market – the world’s largest fine wine economy. This integration has strengthened our compliance infrastructure, logistics, and direct-to-client capabilities, making the FINE+RARE Group the dominant force in fine wine trading.  Supplier Relationships: Strengthening the Global Supply Chain  At the FINE+RARE Group, our strength lies not only in our marketplace but in the deep, strategic relationships we have built with suppliers – including some of the world’s most esteemed wineries, négociants, and merchants. Through direct allocations and exclusive partnerships, we provide unparalleled access to rare and investment-grade wines, often securing highly sought-after allocations before they reach the broader market​  Our supplier relationships are carefully curated, ensuring authenticity, provenance, and trust in every bottle. Additionally, our logistics and digital integration strategies will soon allow suppliers to self-manage inventory, pricing and market demand with greater visibility and efficiency. This data-driven approach enhances liquidity, ensuring that both buyers and producers benefit from a dynamic, well-balanced marketplace​.  A Leader in Fine Wine Asset Management  With nearly $750 million in fine wine assets under management (AUM), the FINE+RARE Group is one of the foremost custodians of rare and investment-grade wines. Our digital portfolio platform empowers clients to manage, transfer, sell, and arrange deliveries with unparalleled ease. As we scale toward $1 billion in AUM, we continue to lead the industry in offering end-to-end asset management services.  Innovation: Digital Excellence  Technology is reshaping the fine wine market, and the FINE+RARE Group is at the forefront of this transformation. Recommendation engines are already enhancing customer experiences, while data-driven insights optimize pricing, stock management and logistics.   We are pioneering white-label solutions for elite producers, integrating client-facing web tools with backend logistics to expand their brand presence. Our recent collaborations exemplify how we are merging tradition with digital innovation to create new pathways for collectors and producers alike. Exclusivity Through Access: Controlled Supply & Distinctive Value True desirability isn’t created through abundance – it’s earned through intention and access. By curating rare allocations and exclusive offerings, we build a marketplace where scarcity enhances value, supports margin, and sets brands apart. This approach ensures our clients are not just customers, but valued members of a finely tuned community built around shared discovery and trust. Client Experience: The Art of Fine Wine Collecting  Our focus is not just on transactions – it’s on relationships. The FINE+RARE Group is built on a foundation of trust, expertise, and bespoke service, ensuring that each collector’s journey is tailored to their preferences. From legendary producers to emerging winemakers, our portfolio remains dynamic, engaging, and exclusive.  Through private tastings, curated events and elite collaborations, we offer collectors access to experiences as rare as the wines they seek. Our commitment to editorial excellence further deepens engagement, providing insights into vintages, producers and market trends.  The Future: A Marketplace Without Limits  As the FINE+RARE Group continues to scale, our ambition is clear: to be the world’s definitive fine wine platform, seamlessly blending marketplace liquidity and digital intelligence. With our unparalleled portfolio, proprietary technology and global reach, we are setting a new standard for the future of fine wine trading.  This is just the beginning of an exciting chapter, and we look forward to bringing you on this journey. It has never been a more interesting time to buy and sell wines in this ever-evolving global marketplace. 
  Managing Risk: A Transparent Approach from Day One  We recognize that any platform transformation — particularly one involving legacy systems and historical data — comes with inherent risks. From day one, we have addressed these head-on. Our integration strategy includes rigorous data migration protocols, full system testing, and live-market simulations to ensure continuity of service. Legacy issues, including inconsistencies in portfolio data, valuation records, and trading permissions, have been reviewed in detail and remediated where necessary. For clients, this means minimal disruption and a step-change improvement in accuracy, functionality, and control. We will continue to operate with transparency, offering dedicated support and a direct line to our expert team to resolve any transitional issues swiftly and professionally. Our commitment is clear: to maintain the trust we’ve earned while delivering a seamless upgrade to a smarter, more powerful fine wine experience. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out on feedback@vinfolio.com.  

Since 2022, Vinfolio is part of the FINE+RARE Group, the world’s leading destination for fine wine, offering a global experience where collectors and connoisseurs can discover and acquire sought-after collectables. Here, we explain our platform strategy and the changes coming this April. 

We explain our platform strategy and what changes are coming your way this April.

Redefining the Fine Wine Marketplace for the Future

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book called Time Tamed. In retrospect it is an ambitious title. Even at the time I realised as much, describing man’s efforts to tame time as being a task as Sisyphean as it is Canute-like. Humankind invented time to make sense of the world around us. It can be argued that an understanding of time – and the ability, however rudimentary, to track it and act according to it – is right up there alongside the ability to fashion tools and communicate using spoken language, as one of the characteristics setting humans aside from the other species with which our planet is shared. In the beginning at least, the extent of our relationship with time was a cognitive reaction to phenomena that permitted the prediction of cyclical seasonal events such as the migration of animals, and later forecasting the effect of variations in terms of temperature and daylight hours on the flowering and fruiting of crops.   The triumph of human intellect, and the beginning of our species’ march to its position at the apex of life on our planet, was to make conscious use of this intellectual edge that allowed us to benefit from the recurring patterns of events foretold by observation of such astronomical phenomena as the rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, and the lengthening and shortening of the diurnal span. Lunar phases repeat themselves in a cycle of 29½ days; the tropical year as measured, say, from winter solstice to winter solstice (when the day is shortest and night longest) is approximately 365¼ days. The interaction of the solar and lunar calendars, providing, respectively, the year and the 12 months in it, gave us the framework upon which to build civilisation. “If time was conceived as the precise measure of an ordered succession of states, it should come as no surprise to find that its first criterion of measurement in every known civilization should have been the movement of the stars (which is both movement and return, in other words a ‘constant periodical appearance’)”, wrote Umberto Eco. He next posed the rhetorical question: “Even if there were nothing more to time than this, it would still be interesting to ask why, for so many centuries, men measured out the years, the months, and the days, but came so late to measuring hours and minutes. The main stumbling block was the need for mechanically precise instruments to measure them.” Calendars of varying degrees of sophistication have been in use for millennia. In my book, I wrote about a series of 12 fire pits in Scotland that – in conjunction with the known location of sunrise through a mountain pass on the morning of the winter solstice – functioned as a calendar in the Mesolithic period, 10,000 years ago. Compared to that, widely available accurate timekeeping is only a relatively recent phenomenon. Had you asked a medieval peasant the time, he would have probably told you what season it was and, as recently as the mid 19th century, time was measured according to local meridians that gave a local solar noon. Britain, at the time the world’s preeminent industrial power, only got its first real taste of unified national time in 1851, when millions visited the Great Exhibition, travelling from all corners of the Kingdom by trains that ran to a single national time. But in the last couple of centuries the pace has hastened: we have become, as Eco put it, “children of a clock civilization”, and I am sure there are those who would argue that it is from there that many of our problems have arisen.   The industrialisation of time was of particular interest to Karl Marx. “The clock is the first automatic machine applied to practical purposes,” he wrote to Friedrich Engels in 1863, “and the whole theory of production of regular motion was developed on it.” Even though abstract, time had become the ultimate economic commodity. Life became lived according to the maxim ‘time is money’ and with a Gradgrindian myopia we have concentrated on ever smaller divisions of time until we have become not children but slaves of the clock. Time was never tangible, but in the past it linked human experience to the cosmos through the tracking of solar and lunar cycles. The division of time into units that are independent of astral cycles has distanced us from the natural rhythms of life. Division of time into small units standardised around the world has facilitated the synchronisation of activities that enable us to live in our modern world of ‘just-in-time’ production, conurbations with populations of millions, and a network of integrated transport systems that allow us to travel from one side of the world to the other well within the span of a single day. It has taken the recent and as yet unresolved upheaval wrought upon our carefully organised world by the COVID-19 pandemic to reveal the humbling fragility of the system by which we live and regulate our lives. Moreover, one could argue that it is the application of monetised time that is responsible for the ravages that we have perpetrated on our planet in pursuit of our industrial goals. But before we blame the rise of the timepiece for the ills of the world, there is an aspect to watchmaking that can enable us to reconnect with the cosmos in a way that is familiar to those conversant with the world of biodynamic winemaking. So, when the editor of FONDATA suggested biodynamic winemaking as the prism through which to view watchmaking, I was intrigued. Once upon a time, a long time ago, I did work in the wine trade. However, we parted company during the 1980s, some time before biodynamic winemaking became what I believe is called ‘a thing’. Obviously, all readers of FONDATA understand the basic principles of biodynamics, but I needed to undergo a quick crash course in what is just one of the legacies of the quite extraordinarily colourful and at times controversial Rudolf Steiner; the late 19th- and early 20th-century Austrian philosopher, social reformer, writer, educationalist, editor, architect, spiritualist, scientific spiritualist, mystic, Goethe superfan, campaigner for the independence of upper Silesia – and much more besides. He came up with everything from a new, quasi-religious movement called ‘Anthroposophy’, to a new approach to medicine; a new artform, ‘Eurythmy’, to a new form of agriculture, ‘Biodynamics’. Steiner turned his fecund and agile mind to the problem of agriculture in the early 1920s and addressed many of the concerns that we are still grappling with a century later, advocating a sustainable ecologically-oriented approach to farming that eschewed chemical pesticides and fertilisers in favour of natural alternatives and conducting agriculture based on an astronomical and astrological calendar. Steiner is memorable because he could enliven even the relatively practical activity of growing things with woo-woo mumbo jumbo of a level to which even Gwyneth Paltrow can only aspire: for instance, burying manure in a cow horn over winter and then exhuming it; or controlling infestations of field mice by sprinkling fields with the ashes obtained by burning the skin of a “fairly young mouse” obtained “at a time when Venus is in the sign of Scorpio”. And yet, such was the power of his way of thinking that it would be wrong to characterise him as a total crank: Steiner was apparently taken seriously by Hitler as a threat to National Socialism.  But back to wine. Prima facie, there is little to link the joyous celebration and bounteousness of viniculture with the mechanical slicing of hours into minutes, into seconds into milliseconds. However, to view watchmaking as being just about the business of telling the time is to underestimate what is in my opinion one of the most engrossing areas of human ingenuity and creativity, where science, mathematics, mechanics and art meet. I like to think about watchmaking as being connected to the detection and calibration of rhythms and patterns … biodynamic farming is all about rhythms and patterns, especially those of the lunar calendar. In his writings, there are times when Steiner could be writing the script for Star Wars – when he talks of entering into “the forces that regulate growth, crucially the ‘fully-evolved Moon-force’”.  The Biodynamic Association uses less picturesque language to summarise the approach, saying that the philosophy of biodynamic farming is founded on “the influences of the moon, planets and constellations on plant growth”. “Each month the moon moves through all twelve constellations of the zodiac in turn. This is referred to as the moon’s sidereal cycle and forms the basis of the biodynamic calendar. Although the waxing and waning (synodic) cycle is the most well-known lunar rhythm, it plays a small part in this calendar.” The indication of moon phases has long been a feature of watchmaking, and even if knowing whether one is living under a waxing gibbous moon is not of primary importance to most of us, the function is undeniably decorative when artistically transferred to a watch face – the moon disc, often decorated with a background of stars, making a complete rotation once every 29½ days. Watches with more advanced astronomical functionality feature sidereal time as well. And this year, the long-established watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre demonstrated that it is capable of getting seriously cosmological. To celebrate the 90th anniversary of its famous Reverso model, it released the world’s first four-sided watch, the Hybris Mechanica Quadriptyque. As its name suggests the Reverso flips over to reveal its back. Initially conceived as a protective measure, more recently the back has been used to display other information (another time zone for instance). Now, the cradle in which the watch sits on the wrist has also been mechanised to offer two further planes for display – much in the way that one can connect multiple screens to a single computer rather than having to be constantly opening and closing windows. And Jaeger’s watchmaking wizards have turned faces three and four into a banquet of lunar information.  On the interior face of the cradle there are three displays giving the synodic cycle in the northern hemisphere, the draconic cycle (the height of the moon) and the anomalistic cycle (apogee and perigee, when the moon is respectively furthest from and nearest to the Earth), while the fourth side of the watch gives the synodic cycle in the southern hemisphere.   It sounds like an observatory on the wrist and according to the makers: “the Hybris Mechanica Quadriptyque can predict the next global incidence of astronomical events such as supermoons and eclipses – the world’s first wristwatch to provide such a deep reading of the cosmos.” I imagine even Steiner would be impressed especially as in biodynamic circles cosmological connections are crucial. Biodynamic agricultural activity is governed by knowledge of the behaviour of celestial bodies: ascending moon days favour certain agricultural activities while other tasks are better performed on descending moon days. Eclipses, apogee, perigee, and new moons all have their associated agricultural messages for the biodynamic farmer.   “It’s connected into the cosmos,” explains Philippa Hegarty of Hegarty Chamans, a vineyard in the foothills of the Montagne Noire in the Minervois. “We find an explanation that people respond to is; if the Moon has such a strong tidal influence then it can certainly move sap up and down a vine and that’s what we work with at different times of the year.” Providing timing of the movement of the tides is another function that the mechanical clock or watch can perform; indeed it is one of the oldest, predating the minute hand, the second hand, the wristwatch and even the pocket watch. The provision of times of high tide by a mechanical timepiece can be traced back to the 14th century and the famous Astronomical Clock designed by Richard of Wallingford, Abbot of St. Albans – which as well as showing the fixed stars and charting the movements of the sun and moon (complete with ecliptic nodes – another important feature for biodynamic winemakers) gave the times of the tides at London Bridge.   In fact, the technical leap forward accomplished by clockmakers in the 14th century rivals that of computer networks in our own time: at the end of the 13th century time was still being told by clepsydrae (like an hour glass but with water instead of sand) and by the middle of the following century, man was mapping the cosmos using mechanical machines of unimaginable complexity. If Giovanni de Dondi’s Astrarium of 1364 looks a little like a lunar landing module, then that was not the only thing it predicted. About a metre high and standing on protruding feet, the Astrarium featured seven panels with dials that showed the movements of the sun, moon and the then-known planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Further dials indicated dates of fixed and moveable religious feast days, the intersections of the solar and lunar orbits, and time of sunrise and sunset. In comparison, the 24-hour clock seems prosaic, almost otiose. Another common feature of these miracle machines of the Middle Ages was the zodiac. Rather than being relegated to the horoscope section of the tabloid press, astrology was as much of a science as astronomy, and a medieval megaclock could not take itself seriously without a dial or two depicting the signs of the zodiac. The celebrated Three Kings Clock of Strasbourg Cathedral was no exception. As well as its astrolabe dial, ecclesiastical calendar, carillon mechanism that filled the air with religious music, and the automata that replicated the nativity, an illustrated panel linked signs of the zodiac to body parts, connecting human health with the movements of the celestial bodies, thus indicating propitious or hazardous times for that key medical procedure of the times: bloodletting. The influence of the zodiac constellations is an important part of the biodynamic playbook. “Since ancient times the twelve zodiac constellations have been associated with each of the four elements: earth, water, air and light,” observes the Biodynamic Association. “Three constellations are connected to each element, and each element is related to a part of the plant: thus, Earth – root; water – leaf; air – flower; fire – fruit.” “For example, for sowing or harvesting carrots, an earth – root day should be chosen; for lettuce, a water – leaf day; for beans and apples, a fire – fruit day; and for flowers and broccoli, an air – flower day.” As the example of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Quadriptyque shows, thanks to the technological advances that have accrued during the last 20 or 30 years, the miracle of modern mechanical watchmaking is that it is able to miniaturise cosmological functions and place them on the wrist. Recent years have seen some truly spectacular wristwatches enter the market. Patek Philippe’s double-faced Sky Moon Tourbillon is regarded as one of the trophies of modern watchmaking: featuring minute repeater with ‘cathedral gongs’; tourbillon; perpetual calendar with retrograde date hand; day, month, leap year in apertures; hours and minutes of mean solar time; moon phases; and on the reverse, moon-focused watch face, sidereal time, sky chart, and phases and orbit of the moon. Van Cleef & Arpels caused a stir when it released a watch that condensed the workings of a planetarium onto the wrist with a watch charting the movement of the five planets visible to the naked eye from Earth: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn; each planet orbiting on its own disc in its real rotation time. Blancpain, meanwhile, has tackled the notoriously complex lunisolar Chinese calendar to create a watch that displays the ten celestial pillars, the five celestial elements, the phases of the moon, the animal associated with the year and the date as given by the Gregorian calendar. I am neither watchmaker nor winemaker, but given the approaching centenary of Steiner’s 1924 series of agricultural lectures which gave birth to biodynamics, now might be a propitious time to consider a mechanical timepiece that displays the cosmological information pertinent to biodynamic viticulturists and farmers. This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue Two.

Author and writer Nicholas Foulkes reflects on how modern horological advances are resulting in some exquisitely made timepieces that look to display increasingly complex celestial information pertinent to a surprising demographic – biodynamic farmers.

Delve into the intricate connection between humans and time. From celestial rhythms to watchmaking marvels, uncover the ties that bind.

Exploring Humanity's Complex Relationship with Time

Celestial Movements 

Looking across the dramatic slopes of the Douro Valley, it’s easy to imagine that time has stood still here. While Port is steeped in tradition, however, recent decades have seen it leap into the modern era – with no shortage of diverging opinions about the “right” way to produce Port. Just put a handful of the region’s finest in a room and ask about co-planted or monovarietal vineyards, granite or stainless steel, de-stemmed or whole-bunch fruit, trodden by foot or machine, and feel the temperature rise as the debate unfurls.  There is, however, one element that gets surprisingly little press – the all-important fortification, an element that arguably defines Port, and until relatively recently was out of winemakers’ control. Originally spirit was added to harden the wines for long journeys in ships’ bows, preparing them for long voyages, and only became standard in the 19th century.   Once the fruit has been picked, trodden and starts fermenting, producers add spirit – or aguardente, often colloquially (and erroneously) referred to as “brandy” – to halt fermentation, thereby retaining the natural grape sugars that give Port its signature sweetness. The wine is a mere 5-6% alcohol at this stage, and the fortification brings it up to between 19 and 22%. Given the strength that the wine needs to reach, this spirit represents a massive 20% of the final product. Legally, aguardente must be a grape spirit of 77% – significantly lower in strength than the spirits used for other fortified wines (such as Madeira or Vins Doux Naturels, which use a highly rectified grape spirit of 95-96%). This lower alcoholic strength is key; meaning the spirit is less neutral, and therefore has even more of an impact on the final wine.  This spirit has a rocky history which isn’t free from scandal. After a local shortage, 1904 became known as the “Schnapps vintage” – having been fortified largely with a German spirit made from potato and grain. The 1972, ’73 and ’74 vintages saw industrial alcohol used instead of grape distillate. (Responsibility for this latter fraud fell to a French supplier who duped the unknowing Casa do Douro into buying Yugoslavian spirit.) Besides these occasional lapses, the spirit was mainly made from excess wine in the Douro during 19th and early 20th century, but in 1907 the Portuguese Prime Minister João Franco banned the distillation of wine from the Douro, meaning aguardente had to be found elsewhere. Despite presenting 20% of the wine, the spirit used today is far from local, sourced from far beyond Portuguese borders (often Spain and France).  The key date – however – is 1991. Under the authoritarian Estado Novo regime in the early 1930s, a monopoly on the spirit was established, with its supply state-controlled. This continued for over half a century, via the Casa do Douro, and then from 1976 via the Instituto do Vinho do Porto e Douro or IVDP. The freedom to choose which spirit used was only granted to shippers in 1991 – something that David Guimaraens (Head Winemaker at Taylor Fladgate) argues is one of the most significant changes in Port.  “We had no choice, the spirit quality was very average,” Guimaraens laments of the old days. He returned to Portugal, fresh from studying at Australia’s leading winemaking school Roseworthy, in 1990 – just before the shippers gained the freedom to choose their own spirit. “When you use a very clean, fine spirit, when it is young, your fruitiness comes out much more – making it more appealing in youth, almost entirely because of the quality of the spirit,” he explains. He cites two examples – Taylor’s Vargellas Vinha Velha and Croft’s Sērikos – both wines which are made from 100-year-old vineyards, made as they always have been in granite lagares. It is, he argues, only the spirit that has changed in these Ports.   For Guimaraens, the quality of spirit is most apparent in a vintage Port’s “teenage” phase – between 14 and 19 years of age, when it is starting to lose its fruit but not yet fully developed bottle maturity. This transitional phase is, in his view “much more attractive than it used to be in the past”, meaning Port drinkers are safer opening a bottle at any stage of its life. He points to 2000 as a pivotal vintage, when the quality of spirit started to really improve and produce, in his view, some of the region’s finest wines.  “Spirit has been crucial,” Richard Mayson – writer and author specializing in the wines of Portugal – agrees. “When vinification techniques were experimental – the late 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s – you can certainly taste the poor quality spirit in the thinner-quality wines.” He explains that this period saw massive emigration and a resulting shortage of feet to tread the region’s harvests. The early autovinifiers used in lieu of the traditional foot-treading simply didn’t result in the same level of extraction – and therefore have, over time, revealed the underlying spirit quality. There are, of course, exceptions – with some great wines made. He, however, like Guimaraens, feels the 2000 vintage marked a real shift in the class of spirit used.  The uptick in the quality of spirit is one of the reasons – along with the quality of the fruit, viticulture and more – that Carlos Agrellos of Quinta do Noval feels the property has been able to declare every vintage since 2011. “It’s extremely important to choose the right one,” Carlos Agrellos of Quinta do Noval explains of the spirit. He is one of a group of 20 companies – including Niepoort – who have, over the past five years, clubbed together to buy spirit. As smaller operatives, grouping together gives them more clout, enabling them to secure higher-quality spirit for their wines – and fair prices. Each May they meet in Gaia, tasting through a selection of spirits sent over by three or four different producers – all of which are scored blind. In 2020, they tasted 20 different spirits that were approved.   The results of the tasting are shared with everyone, then each company will decide which they wish to buy for their wines. The spirits come from southern France, Spain or Portugal. There are two categories of spirit –those distilled from wine and those from wine lees. The two are very different: the former is favoured by most – having more delicate, fruit and floral aromatics; while the latter was only approved for use in 2014, and is usually stronger in flavour. While in general “wine” spirits are generally the best, the spirits from lees can offer additional complexity. “At Noval,” Agrellos explains, “we tend to blend these two and use them for different types of wine, from white Port to Tawny to Vintage Ports.” There’s no fixed blend, and it varies from year to year, but he tends to use both – with higher-grade spirits for Vintage Ports.   Symington and Fladgate – the giants of the Port trade – purchase such large volumes that they buy their spirit independently. Tom Symington – fifth-generation family member and part of the winemaking team – explains that the spirit used to be a wider cut, and today it’s narrower, resulting in a purer spirit. “We focus on the neutrality, the aromas and the way it reacts with the wine,” he says.   Talking to producers about the style of spirit they look for, there is a general consensus that neutrality is desirable – to what extent, however, varies significantly. Agrellos aims for a more neutral, but slightly floral spirit. The most important thing for him, however, is the volume on the palate: he believes that it is this volume and texture of spirit that is most important for vintage Port. “It’s what will hold the wines for years to come,” he says. He values this above and beyond aromatics, while of course looking for something very pure. It’s this texture that leads him to use some wine-lees distillate – which has much more to offer in that regard, as well as its stronger flavour. The wine distillate by contrast tends to be purer in terms of aromatics, and is sometimes even double-distilled.  While Symington uses the same spirit across all their Ports, David Guimaraens looks to use a different style of spirit depending on the style of Port in question. He is clear, however, that it shouldn’t be part of the house style – but a “neutral oenological product”. He chooses to use one batch of spirit across each style for all the houses, not wanting it to be a differentiating factor, or dominate the quality of the fruit. For example, the spirit used for his vintage wines costs twice as much as that for the most entry-level wines – “And you get your return,” he notes.  He blends his own “master spirit”, combining batches sourced mostly from Portugal and France. “In the early days, it wasn’t as simple as using a clean spirit. To get spirit we wanted, we had to get the wines fermented in a particular way,” Guimaraens explains. With an overly neutral spirit, you risk ending up with a lighter Port; but too high a component of higher alcohol and it interferes with the wine’s organoleptic character, subduing the fruit. Too many spirits are made with excess bulk wine – rather than wine that has been fermented with the express purpose of producing spirit.  Dirk Niepoort favours quality and a little bit of character. “The purest, the best, the most harmonious – but not necessarily the most neutral one” is what he looks for, he explains. At the group tastings, his tastes are reportedly well known, with many of his colleagues able to identify the aguardente he will choose. His preferred spirits are finer, lighter, with more precision, but – importantly – also character. He finds that they tend to come from France, often from Cognac, from vineyards specifically planted with the idea of producing a distillate – not just excess wine. “Our grapes are too good for distillation,” Niepoort explains – the best spirits, in his view, are made with grapes from cool climates, with high yields and high acidity. He normally chooses three different spirits, depending on availability and price, with the very best spirit reserved for his top wines. For any organic wines, of course, they require an organic distillate.   While Niepoort admits the quality of spirit has improved, he doesn’t believe that the quality was nearly as bad as some – such as Guimaraens – imply, telling me people are unnecessarily “ferocious” about it. “I think the Port Wine Institute did a fantastic job in selecting huge amounts of spirit. Considering the huge quantity needed, the average quality was extremely high.” It certainly isn’t stopping him drinking fine vintage Ports – such as a bottle of 1963 Noval he had the pleasure of uncorking recently. Nevertheless, he doesn’t deny that it was a significant step not having to buy a mass product, and it has really opened the market.  It’s not as simple as winemakers having total autonomy, however, with a strict approval system via the IVDP to ensure the quality of spirit being used meets their standards. “It’s not only complicated – it’s expensive,” Niepoort says of the process. He’s found it a struggle to get some spirits approved, with, for example, double-distilled spirits harder to get sign-off than column-distilled liquids – a clear source of frustration. While the process is clearly there to control quality, producers aren’t abusing this independence; in general they are spending more money than ever before – making the whole thing, in Niepoort’s view, futile. “We should have some freedom to do what we want,” he says.  Tom Symington feels that it’s more than just the quality of spirit that has improved the quality of Port. He believes other developments have been more significant, particularly emphasising advancements in winemaking (highlighting the introduction of stainless steel as well as robotic lagares) and viticulture, especially monovarietal vineyards which – he considers – allow them to achieve perfect phenolic ripeness, with no green or raisined fruit. It is more than just the equipment, he notes – it’s the know-how gained over time, and most importantly balancing that with tradition.  “Of course the modern young people will tell you that viticulture is much better today,” says Niepoort dismissively. He prefers to work with old-fashioned growers. Over 90% of his vineyards are over 60 years in age and traditional field blends. He feels that the shift to monovarietal vineyards – dedicated only to five of the region’s many indigenous varieties – is, along with a move toward de-stemmed fruit rather than foot-trodden whole bunches, responsible for changing the style of Port. “The wines became fruitier and darker, but at the same time, thinner,” he explains. Niepoort historically didn’t make any Port themselves, and the 1994 vintage was the first they produced in-house. For him, this shift – from the 1970s and ‘80s – for shippers to own vineyards, rather than merely buying wine in, is the greatest advancement in the region.  The Douro Valley has seen a run of top-rated vintages – with universal declarations in 2011, 2016 and 2017, and some shippers declaring 2018 and now 2019 (including Niepoort). The general rule of three declarations per decade looks set to become a thing of the past. How much can this be attributed to aguardente? Relatively little, perhaps, however it’s hard to argue that this liquid – making up a fifth of the final wine – doesn’t have a role – and depending on who you talk to, the heart – to producing the very best Port.   Read more Editorial or browse our range of Port

Port is much more than just wine. “Brandy” or aguardente makes up 20% of every bottle – and some argue that a shift in the quality of this spirit is key to the wines’ superiority in the last 20 years. Sophie Thorpe finds out more about the firewater that defines the Douro’s age-old fortified wines 

Exploring the firewater – “Brandy” or aguardente that makes up 20% of every bottle – which defines the Douro’s age-old fortified Port wines.

Aguardente vinica and its role in Port winemaking

A spirited debate: the tale of Port’s 20%

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