Kopke

Nicolau Kopke and his son Cristiano arrived in Portugal as representatives of the Hanseatic League in the 1630s and established the Kopke trading house in 1638. The first wine shipments under the Kopke name date to that founding year — making Kopke the oldest continuously-active Port Wine house. For more than a century the firm operated as a négociant trader, sourcing wine from Douro growers; in 1781 the family purchased its first Douro vineyards, transitioning from trading house to estate producer. Kopke's continued operation across nearly four centuries spans the major Port-trade transitions, from English-market dominance to modern global distribution.

In 1922 Kopke acquired Quinta de São Luiz at Tabuaço, on the left bank of the Douro between Régua and Pinhão. The Quinta serves as the production estate and the home of the Kopke vintage and Colheita programs. Since 2006 the house has been owned by the Sogevinus Fine Wines group, a Portuguese conglomerate that also owns Burmester, Cálem and other Port houses. The Kopke range covers Fine Tawny, White Port, LBV (Late Bottled Vintage), Vintage Port, and the long-aged Colheita line — single-vintage Tawny Ports aged in cask for decades before bottling, an expression Kopke is particularly identified with.