Fonseca Porto

Fonseca has been run by the Guimaraes family since 1822 and is recognised as a haven of consistency and producer of some of the best Vintage Ports in history.

The Fonseca house was founded in 1815 by João dos Santos Fonseca. In 1820, he joined forces with Francisco José Gomes Monteiro, the scion of an important Portuguese merchant family, in order to be able to invest more capital in export markets, which was very successful from the outset. in 1822, the two sent the young Manoel Pedro Guimaraens to London to set up a trading branch for Fonseca. He was very successful and took over the port house with his sons in 1863.

The legendary first Vintage Port vintage in 1940 cemented the excellent reputation of the house, whose style "with its lush and seductive character could be described as the Pomerol of Vintage Ports", as Robert Parker once wrote. And James Suckling put it this way in his standard work on Vintage Ports: "Fonseca's Vintage Ports are perhaps the most consistent of all. Not only do they have a striking fleshiness and powerful richness when young, but they retain this youthfulness for decades."