Quinta do Vesuvio Vintage Port 2018
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Winemaker Notes
This is a powerful, attention-grabbing wine, with taut muscularity. It offers magnificent aromas of rockrose, mint and hints of ginger. The substantial palate is full with expressive black fruit notes lifted by peppery schist tannins (the seasoning provided by the Sousao). The long, lingering aftertaste indicates impressive ageing potential.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Expressive, with a wave of pure creamed plum, blackberry and blueberry fruit gliding through atop enticing anise and milk chocolate notes. Velvety, caressing finish makes it hard to see the graphite structure here, but it's there. Suave finish too. Will be hard to lay off this one in its youth, but it's destined for terrific development. Best from 2032 through 2055.
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James Suckling
This is a big, ripe young vintage Port with dried fruit, such as figs and prunes, treacle tart and chocolate. Full-bodied and very sweet with lots of round tannins and a long, flavorful finish. This needs five or six years to soften. Just 3% of the Vesuvio production. Try after 2025 and onwards.
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Wine Enthusiast
The magnificent Vesuvio estate has produced a densely rich Port. Its tannins and big black fruit are just the starting point for a long journey. It is sumptuous and structured at the same time. Drink this wine from 2027.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Vintage Port is a blend of 54% Touriga Nacional and 40% Touriga Franca and Alicante Bouschet combined, with miscellaneous others filling out the blend. It comes in with 112 grams of residual sugar. This is one of the two Ports being released en primeur now by the Symingtons in this issue. If you are judging the group on concentration and power, this is easily the winner, the one with the biggest upside. There are some other points to make, though. You may like the style of some others more. Range: 92-94
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Although historical records mention Vesuvio as early as 1565 it was primarily under the auspices of the Douro's redoubtable widow, Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, that this vineyard estate acquired its legendary reputation. The estate's industrious founder was her husband who from 1820 began the ambitious task of planting the vineyard. This gargantuan enterprise involving the shaping and construction of terraces on the intractable slopes and the planting of hundreds of thousands of vines took his legions of workers thirteen years to complete. Following the founder's death, his widow continued to develop the property, which under her able management became the showpiece quinta of the Douro. At Vesuvio she built one of the Douro's largest wineries, containing eight granite 'lagares' (treading tanks) each capable of holding 25 pipes (1 pipe: 550 litres). In 1989 Quinta do Vesuvio was purchased by the Symington family whose involvement in the growing, production and shipping of Port began more than a century ago. The family decided from the outset to preserve the traditional character of the Quinta especially with regard to the vinification process where the time-honored method of treading the grapes by foot has been retained. Some technological innovations have been introduced principally in the form of a cooling system to control fermentation in this ancient wine making method. In view of the outstanding quality of the wine, Vesuvio is offered exclusively as a single Quinta Vintage Port. Only about 50 pipes (36,000 bottles) are bottled each year although the production of the property is much greater and this exemplifies the family's steadfast policy of releasing none but the very finest wines from the Quinta.
Port is a sweet, fortified wine with numerous styles: Ruby, Tawny, Vintage, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), White, Colheita, and a few unusual others. It is blended from from the most important red grapes of the Douro Valley, based primarily on Touriga Nacional with over 80 other varieties approved for use. Most Ports are best served slightly chilled at around 55-65°F.
The home of Port—perhaps the most internationally acclaimed beverage—the Douro region of Portugal is one of the world’s oldest delimited wine regions, established in 1756. The vineyards of the Douro, set on the slopes surrounding the Douro River (known as the Duero in Spain), are incredibly steep, necessitating the use of terracing and thus, manual vineyard management as well as harvesting. The Douro's best sites, rare outcroppings of Cambrian schist, are reserved for vineyards that yield high quality Port.
While more than 100 indigenous varieties are approved for wine production in the Douro, there are five primary grapes that make up most Port and the region's excellent, though less known, red table wines. Touriga Nacional is the finest of these, prized for its deep color, tannins and floral aromatics. Tinta Roriz (Spain's Tempranillo) adds bright acidity and red fruit flavors. Touriga Franca shows great persistence of fruit and Tinta Barroca helps round out the blend with its supple texture. Tinta Cão, a fine but low-yielding variety, is now rarely planted but still highly valued for its ability to produce excellent, complex wines.
White wines, generally crisp, mineral-driven blends of Arinto, Viosinho, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and an assortment of other rare but local varieties, are produced in small quantities but worth noting.
With hot summers and cool, wet winters, the Duoro has a maritime climate.