Last summer, Portuguese entrepreneur Mário Ferreira travelled to an altitude of 107 kilometres (66 miles) above mean sea level.
He took a bottle of Taylor’s 2003 Vintage Port with him as a passenger on the mission run by Blue Origin, the aerospace company set up by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
In doing so, the tourism tycoon became the first Portuguese man in space, and he toasted his 10-minute suborbital journey with a glass of his favourite fortified wine.
Taylor’s has now capitalised on the momentous occasion by launching a limited-edition gift box featuring its 2003 Vintage Port.
The gift box has a galactic theme, so it should add extra sparkle to wine cellars, and it could also make an excellent birthday gift for anyone turning 21 next year.
Taylor’s CEO Adrian Bridge said the 2003 vintage was ‘an excellent choice and the perfect vintage with which to explore new frontiers’.
The wine was sourced from two of Taylor’s top vineyards in the Douro – Quinta de Vargellas and Quinta de Terra Feita.
As always, the grapes from these sites come together whenever the overall quality is high enough for Taylor’s to declare a vintage.
The 2003 vintage was blessed with warm weather at the end of May, supporting a successful flowering, followed by intense summer heat in early August.
Cooler temperatures arrived in late August, preceding a warm, dry picking season in September, so conditions were almost perfect, and the result is a balanced, complex wine, which has consistently secured high scores from leading wine critics.
‘The Taylor’s 2003 Vintage is one of the most highly acclaimed Port wines of recent decades – a monumental vintage which, to quote celebrated wine authority Robert Parker, will stand proudly shoulder to shoulder with the finest ever crafted by Taylor’s,’ said Bridge.