10 Year Old Tawny Port

About this wine

Dow’s 10 Year Old Tawny shows bright red cherry and dried fig on the nose, with toasted almond and toffee notes that come from extended cask aging. The palate is mouth filling, with concentrated dried fruit and a marmalade like citrus note, supported by a peppery spice and a clear, slightly dry finish. The wine is blended from traditional Douro red varieties such as Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, Tinto Cão, Touriga Franca and Touriga Nacional. It is matured for an average of ten years in seasoned oak casks in Dow’s lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia, which encourages oxidation driven development of nutty and caramel flavours. The house style is relatively drier and more structured than many tawnies, and it is bottled at 20 percent alcohol by volume.

About the grape

Touriga Nacional is a late ripening, highly aromatic Douro variety prized for its concentrated tannins and color, here it provides backbone from old vines often planted on schist soils and picked from high classified vineyards. Touriga Franca brings floral lift and supple fruit, it is widely planted in the Douro and in Dow s blends it softens structure while preserving acidity and freshness. Tinta Roriz, the local name for Tempranillo, contributes firm red fruit and mid palate weight and is commonly trained on terraces where it benefits from the region s dry summers and steep schist slopes. Tinta Barroca and Tinto Cão are used to round out the blend, Barroca adding earlier ripening softness useful for tawny ageing and Tinto Cão supplying high acidity and aromatic persistence, with all varieties matured in seasoned oak in Dow s Vila Nova de Gaia lodges to produce the ten year style.

Quick facts

• 🌊 Dow’s 10‑Year Tawny is aged primarily in Dow’s coastal cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia, where the Atlantic influence slows maturation and gives a brighter fruit lift than inland ageing
• 🛢️ Part of its signature character comes from ageing some wine in massive, well‑seasoned balseiros (5,000–10,000 litre oak vats) which preserve more fruit while still adding tawny oxidative notes
• 🧭 The bottle often shows Dow’s noticeably drier house style—achieved by slightly longer fermentation and careful blending—so it tastes more restrained than many other 10‑year tawnies
• 😇 During its decade in wood roughly a quarter of the original volume evaporates, concentrating flavours; winemakers call this friendly loss the ‘angel’s share’
• 🫐 Although labelled “10 Years” as an average, the wine is a meticulous blend of many vintages and grape varieties from Dow’s top classified Douro vineyards, giving layered nutty and marmalade notes

Palate profile

Producer

Dow’s Port traces its roots to 1798, when Portuguese merchant Bruno da Silva went to London and built a strong reputation importing wines from Portugal. During the Napoleonic Wars, the firm was noted for securing armed protection for its shipments across the Bay of Biscay. In 1862, Bruno’s son, John da Silva, partnered with Frederick William Cosens to form Silva and Cosens, a key step in the house’s development. Since 1912, the Symington family has been closely involved with Dow’s, working across five generations at Douro estates including Quinta do Bomfim and Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira. Today, Dow’s is celebrated for structured, ageworthy Ports and a house style that is often described as notably dry for the category.