White Castle Vineyard 1581 Fortified Wine 2021

This is rather special. It can’t be called Port, because it’s not from the Douro in Portugal, but this wine is made in the same way as a Late Bottled Vintage Port. Hand harvested regent grapes from the 2021 harvest were vinified and then spirit added to stop the fermentation, leaving residual sugar in the fortified wine. The wine then sat in barrel for 3 years before being bottled, and each one of the bottles was then hand sealed by the winemaker, Robb Merchant. The liquid displays powerful blackberry and bramble flavours, and is rich, soft and lingering on the palate. Limited in number, and unique in style within these shores, this is a real gem of a wine.

We would strongly recommend decanting this fortified wine 1 hour prior to drinking it, to allow it to blossom fully. It will also age fantastically over the next 5+ years.

White Castle Vineyard is a Welsh vineyard situated near the market towns of Abergavenny and Monmouth, owned and run by Robb and Nicola Merchant. They hit the headlines in 2021 by winning a Gold Medal for their 2018 Pinot Noir Reserve.

Having purchased their 12-acre smallholding in 1995 they converted the milking parlour into their home a year later. However, it was 2008 before the dream of owning a vineyard become a reality, the 5 acres gently sloping south-facing field was purchased, soil tests were performed and vines ordered. May 2009 saw the planting of 4000 vines of Pinot Noir, Regent, Rondo, Seyval Blanc & Phoenix, with May 2010 seeing a further planting of 800 Siegerrebe vines. May 2019 marked their 10th anniversary since first planting and to mark this milestone they planted a further 2000 vines of Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc.