Bin 27 Finest Reserve Port

About this wine

Fonseca Bin 27 is a reserve ruby style Port from Portugal’s Douro Valley, made as a consistent house blend drawn from multiple years and bottled when ready to drink. It was first created in 1972 as a fruit driven, accessible expression of the Fonseca style, inspired by the richness associated with Vintage Port. The blend typically features classic Douro varieties including Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Tinto Cão, and Tinta Amarela, building both aroma and structure. On the nose it is intense and ripe, with blackberry, cassis, cherry and plum, plus light spice and a hint of cocoa. The palate is full and round, with a soft, velvety mouthfeel supported by firm tannins and a sweet, dark fruit core that carries through a long finish. It is aged for several years in large oak vats or barrels, which smooths the wine without stripping its vibrant fruit character, and it sits at the classic Port strength of about 20 percent alcohol.

About the grape

Fonseca Bin 27 is built from the classic Douro Port grapes, led by Touriga Nacional, a low yielding native variety with tiny thick skinned berries that is usually kept in check by pruning and low training on the valley’s steep schist terraces. Touriga Franca, a natural cross of Touriga Nacional and Mourisco Tinto, is the region’s most widely planted Port grape and is valued in this bottling for reliable ripening and for filling out the blend with perfume and balanced tannin. Tinta Roriz, the Portuguese name for Spain’s Tempranillo, supports the structure, while Tinta Barroca, widely adopted in the Douro from the late 1800s, is often sited in cooler or shadier parcels to avoid excessive sugar and to bring generous fruit weight. Small portions of very old Douro staples like Tinto Cão, prized despite very low yields for its ability to hold acidity in hot dry conditions, and Tinta Amarela, also called Trincadeira and common in old mixed vineyards, round out the traditional field blend base used for this reserve Ruby style Port.

Quick facts

• 🏷️ “Bin 27” is a throwback to Fonseca’s old habit of naming special lots with bin numbers, Alistair Robertson chose the name when the blend was created in 1972.
• 🍷 It is a Reserve Ruby Port that is bottled only when the blend is already rounded and ready to pour straight from the bottle, rather than needing long bottle aging.
• 🫐 Bin 27 is built from selected reserve Ports chosen for a smooth, full bodied style with intense black fruit character, aiming to echo the house signature of Fonseca Vintage Port in a more everyday format.
• 🗺️ This bottling has a particularly loyal fan base in North America and is one of the most widely recognized Fonseca Ports internationally.
• 📜 The house behind Bin 27 traces documented Port trading to April 8, 1815, when João dos Santos Fonseca bought 32 pipes of Port, a paper trail that later fueled Fonseca’s bicentenary celebrations.

Palate profile

Producer

Fonseca traces its documented origins to 1815, when the firm appears in Port trade records in Oporto under founder João dos Santos Fonseca. In the early 1820s the business expanded through the Fonseca and Monteiro partnership, and control later passed to the Guimaraens family, who kept Fonseca as the house name. The company is known for deeply colored, aromatic Vintage Port, and its flagship Douro estate, Quinta do Panascal, is a key source of grapes and a long running single quinta Vintage Port. In modern times the house has been led by winemaker David Guimaraens, and today Fonseca operates within The Fladgate Partnership alongside other historic Port brands.