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空前绝后的波特酒品酒会

考克伯恩作为最知名的波特酒，得益于它的特级珍藏(Special Reserve)，我猜这一款酒就连跟波尔图和斗罗河(Douro)上游河谷地区关系密切的波特酒商们也没有太过重视。但是在上个世纪前半叶，考克伯恩的年份波特酒被却是公认的世界最好，并且它的现任所有者(也是从前的竞争对手)辛明顿家族(Symington)在2010年正式接管这个酒庄之后，下定决心要将品牌的声誉从大众市场重新拉回到高端。

A Reserve ruby selling at about ￡10 a bottle all over the world, Cockburn’s Special Reserve was launched in 1969 as a sort of red sister to the then hugely successful Harveys Bristol Cream sherry. Until then the isolated port trade had pottered along hand-selling top-quality vintage ports perhaps three times a decade and satisfying the mass markets in France and the UK in particular with bulk shipments of young ruby and tawny.

一款珍藏红宝石波特酒在世界范围内的售价大约为10英镑一瓶，1969年推出的考克伯恩的特级珍藏与后来大获成功的Harveys Bristol Cream雪利酒颇有渊源。从那个时候开始，这一款高品质的年份波特酒开始供应英法的大众市场，红宝石波特酒以及茶色波特酒更是整批整批大量产出。

But as Cockburn’s owners stormed world markets, their reputation for fine wine waned. Cockburn’s vintage-port-producing record was eccentric to say the least. The company decided to ignore 1977, an incomparable year “declared as a vintage by virtually every other port shipper, releasing a lacklustre 1978 instead. The story goes that when the team in Oporto contacted head office in the UK, by now part of Allied Domecq, to suggest that a given year was good enough for a vintage port to be declared, they would be instructed instead to put all their efforts into ramping up production of the precious baby Cockburn’s Special Reserve.