Kopke

Kopke is the oldest Port house in the world, and it was founded by two Germans. Nicolau Köpke, a merchant from Hamburg, arrived in Portugal as Consul General of the Hanseatic League and in 1638 set up the business together with his son Cristiano. The date is worth placing: the Douro was not demarcated as a wine region until 1756, more than a century later.

For nearly a century and a half the house bought wine rather than made it. That changed in 1781, when it acquired its first farm in the Douro and moved from merchant to producer. In 1922 it bought Quinta de São Luiz, where all its DOC Douro wines are made today.

Its speciality is Colheita, single-vintage Ports aged for many years in wood before bottling, a category in which the house is the benchmark.