The summer of 1969 was a tumultuous and eventful time around the World. From Neil Armstrong becoming the first person to set foot on the Moon and The Beatles’ recording their final album, Abbey Road (as well as their last public performance together, on the roof of Apple Records) to the first Concorde test flight and Woodstock.

In the Douro Valley meanwhile the 1969 vintage had experienced one of the highest winter rainfalls on record. This record breaking winter was followed by a very hot July and August but the cool start to the summer meant that harvesting did not begin until early October.

Since then this extraordinary wine, sixth in a series of magnificent limited edition ports, has been aged for 50 years in oak casks at Taylor’s lodge in Gaia. The wine today is described as having a “deep mahogany” colour, “wild honey” and “cigar box aromas” on the nose and “perfectly calibrated palate…lifted by a fresh acidity,” with, “molasses, dried figs, sultanas and apricot confit”.

Adrian Bridge, managing director at Taylor’s, which owes its leadership of the aged tawny category to its extensive reserves of very old Port maturing in oak cask, said: “It is an absolutely exceptional wine, a superb example of the art of wood ageing refined by Taylor’s over the generations.”