The 2017 vintage produced exceptional ports in the Douro. It was a dry year with extremely low yields that were 20% below the 10-year average and compact bunches of excellent quality berries. The advanced growing season resulted in our earliest ever recorded harvest start date. The quality of these young Vintage Ports and their fantastic potential mean that we believe 2017 will long be remembered as a year of incredibly well-structured wines with stunning concentration, intensity, and balance. Nothing less than a spectacular year for Vintage Port would have justified our first ‘back-to-back’ general declaration in 5 generations since we first became port producers in 1882. Given the very low-yielding year, the 2017 Vintage Port is the smallest Symington declaration of the 21st century, with en primeur volumes approximately a third less than in 2016.