Vintage Wine & Port Blog

The Oldest Known Winery In The World

Posted 23 July 2019

by Jamie Ashcroft

In the mountains of south-east Armenia, near the village of Areni, is a cave complex known as Areni-1. This complex was home to the amazingly well-preserved 5,500-year-old leather shoe found in 2008, as well as an ancient winemaking facility excavated two years later – the oldest known winery in the world.

Armagnac vs Cognac

Posted 2 July 2019

by Jamie Ashcroft

Brandy is a general term used to refer to any kind of distilled spirit made with fermented fruit juice. This means countries all over the world can produce apple, pear, or other fruit brandies, but the French white grape brandies are perhaps the most well-known of them all. But what are Cognac and Armagnac, and what are the differences between the two?

Portugal’s Hidden Gems - Part One

Posted 19 June 2019

by Dia Grigoriou

At Vintage Wine and Port, we always try and source wines that can age gracefully. We recently travelled to Portugal and apart from Vintage Port, (obviously!), we sampled some beautiful examples of vintage dry wines from the up and coming regions of Bairrada and Dao. Our wine buyers were very impressed by the quality and longevity of these examples and decided to bring some over to the UK.