Some wine brands are older than the countries that market them; a rare few are older than the wine that made them famous. Taylor’s is both. The house has been shipping wine out of Portugal since 1692 — before “Port” as we know it had fully taken shape — and, almost uniquely among the founding Port houses, it has stayed independent and family-run for more than three centuries12.
The story begins not with a Portuguese grower but with an English merchant chasing a bargain: a man named Job Bearsley1.
Quick facts
- Taylor’s was founded in 1692 — one of the oldest of the founding Port houses.
- It began trading not in Port but in “red Portugal,” the lean wine of the Minho.
- The 1703 Methuen Treaty favoured Portuguese wine in Britain and helped create the Port trade.
- Taylor’s pioneered Late Bottled Vintage and, in 1934, the first dry white Port, Chip Dry.
An English merchant, 1692
Little is recorded of Bearsley except that he owned the Ram Inn in London’s Smithfield district and that his family held land in Warwickshire and Staffordshire1. He did not set out to trade in Port. His early business was in “red Portugal” — the lean, sharp red of the Minho in the far northwest, the same cool, Atlantic-washed country that today gives us Vinho Verde1. That founding year, 1692, is stamped on every bottle the firm sells, and it makes Taylor’s one of the very oldest of the founding Port houses27.
The treaty that made Port
Why was an English firm shipping Portuguese wine in the first place? The answer is politics and war3. When England was at war with France, French wine grew scarce and heavily taxed, and English merchants looked to friendly Portugal for a substitute. The Methuen Treaty of 1703 then locked the shift in place, granting Portuguese wines a lasting tariff advantage on the British market3.
There was a practical problem, too: the Douro’s fierce young reds travelled badly on the long sea voyage to England. Shippers took to adding grape brandy to steady them — and found that halting the fermentation early left the wine sweet, strong and remarkably long-lived. That fortified wine was Port4. A handful of dates carried the house from a London inn to a global name:
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1692 | Job Bearsley founds the firm |
| 1703 | Methuen Treaty favours Portuguese wine in Britain |
| 1756 | The Douro is formally demarcated as a wine region |
| 1838 | The firm becomes Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman |
| 1934 | Taylor’s launches Chip Dry, the first dry white Port |
The Douro and its quintas
Every bottle of Port begins in the Douro valley, upriver from Porto: a landscape of schist terraces cut into slopes so steep they seem to defy farming, formally demarcated as a protected wine region as far back as 1756 — one of the first appellations in the world5. Taylor’s blends its Vintage Ports from its own estates — the quintas of Vargellas, Terra Feita and Junco — with Quinta de Vargellas, acquired in 1893, the jewel of the group1. Vintage Port, the pinnacle of the range, is “declared” only in the finest years, perhaps three or four times a decade6.
Chip Dry, LBV and a reputation for firsts
Taylor’s is credited as the originator of Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), a style that captures the character of a single fine year without the decades of cellaring a Vintage Port demands, and it remains the leading producer of it2. In 1934 the house launched Chip Dry, the first-ever dry white Port, made to be served chilled as an aperitif1. Above the lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia the family later built The Yeatman, a luxury wine hotel gazing across the Douro to the old quays of Porto8.
The “Lafite of Port”
Over three centuries Taylor’s Vintage Ports have become benchmarks, spoken of in the same breath as the first-growths of Bordeaux; a great vintage can go on improving for half a century in the bottle4. From a London innkeeper’s speculative venture in 1692 to a name that collectors chase at auction today, Taylor’s has done it all — and never once left family hands2.
Frequently asked questions
More from this day in wine history
See everything else that happened on April 8 — who was born, what was bottled, and which laws were signed.
Read more
- The most-used Portuguese grapes
- Barca Velha: the Douro’s first great dry red
- Madeira and American independence
References
- Taylor’s Port — Our History. www.taylor.pt ↩
- Taylor’s Port — About Taylor’s: Who Are We. www.taylor.pt ↩
- Encyclopædia Britannica — Methuen Treaty. www.britannica.com ↩
- Encyclopædia Britannica — port (fortified wine). www.britannica.com ↩
- Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto (IVDP) — the Douro and Port. www.ivdp.pt ↩
- Decanter — Understanding vintage Port and Port styles. www.decanter.com ↩
- Wine-Searcher — Taylor Fladgate producer profile. www.wine-searcher.com ↩
- The Fladgate Partnership — Taylor’s and The Yeatman. www.fladgatepartnership.com ↩
Recommended reading
Rod Phillips
A crisp global history of wine, good on the rise of Port and the Anglo-Portuguese trade.
Hugh Johnson
A masterly global history of wine, excellent on the birth of Port and the Anglo-Portuguese trade.
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