Prats & Symington Chryseia Douro 2011
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Product Details
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Winemaker Notes
Very dark and intense color. Rich fruity nose of black cherries, dark plum, chocolate, with well-integrated and discreet oak. Very rich structure on the palate with great freshness and minerality. The velvety tannins are long, supple and elegant. Lengthy and lingering creamy finish. A wine with great ageing potential.
Blend: 65% Touriga Nacional, 35% Touriga Franca
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
An elegant and monolithic red, pure and powerful, with hints of lushness to the concentrated red plum, raspberry and dark currant flavors. This is filled with black olive and baker's chocolate notes, backed up by grippy tannins. Finishes with refined accents of slate and white pepper
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Wine Enthusiast
A powerful, concentrated wine, it has great density and structure. It shows the quality of the vintage, rich and fruity while preserving the elegance and poise that is typical of Chryseia. The result of a partnership between the Symington family and Bruno Prats from Bordeaux, it has a smooth, ripe, black fruit character underpinned by firm tannins.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 Chryseia is a 65-35 blend of Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca, all aged for 14 months in new French oak and listed at 14.5% alcohol. This is perhaps not quite as deep as some of the bigger vintages of recent years (2007, 2009), but it also perhaps has more mid-palate elegance than either, plus a fresh feel.
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With hundreds of red grape varieties to choose from, winemakers have the freedom to create a virtually endless assortment of blended red wines. In many European regions, strict laws are in place determining the set of varieties that may be used, but in the New World, experimentation is permitted and encouraged resulting in a wide variety of red wine styles. Blending can be utilized to enhance balance or create complexity, lending different layers of flavors and aromas. For example, a red wine blend variety that creates a fruity and full-bodied wine would do well combined with one that is naturally high in acidity and tannins. Sometimes small amounts of a particular variety are added to boost color or aromatics. Blending can take place before or after fermentation, with the latter, more popular option giving more control to the winemaker over the final qualities of the wine.
How to Serve Red Wine
A common piece of advice is to serve red wine at “room temperature,” but this suggestion is imprecise. After all, room temperature in January is likely to be quite different than in August, even considering the possible effect of central heating and air conditioning systems. The proper temperature to aim for is 55° F to 60° F for lighter-bodied reds and 60° F to 65° F for fuller-bodied wines.
How Long Does Red Wine Last?
Once opened and re-corked, a bottle stored in a cool, dark environment (like your fridge) will stay fresh and nicely drinkable for a day or two. There are products available that can extend that period by a couple of days. As for unopened bottles, optimal storage means keeping them on their sides in a moderately humid environment at about 57° F. Red wines stored in this manner will stay good – and possibly improve – for anywhere from one year to multiple decades. Assessing how long to hold on to a bottle is a complicated science. If you are planning long-term storage of your reds, seek the advice of a wine professional.
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.