Warre's Vintage Port 2011
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Warre's 2011 Vintage Port shows the deep opaque purple color of youth and is layered with aromas of sweet blackberry fruit and typically perfumed floral hints of rockrose and fresh violets. On the palate the wine has great finesse and balance, with traces of minerality running through the silky tannic backbone, leading to a long velvety finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Old vine mixed plantings make up 40 percent of the blend, lending it the kind of confermented complexity that makes this compellingly drinkable, delicious right now, as it will be for at least the next 20 or 30 years. Its graceful, reserved finish lasts with drive, a blend of green olive, blueberry skin, purple and blackberrry flavors layered over the scent of roses, esteva, black pepper and the wild Duoro scrub. If you're looking to fall in love with Port, you could start here.
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James Suckling
Extremely floral and fruity with hints of lilacs and crushed fruit. Full body with refined tannins integrated with a solid core of fruit, and a rich, round texture. This is lightly sweet and follows through to a long, long finish. 3,000 cases produced of this mechanically trodden wine. Try in 2022.
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Wine Spectator
Offers seamless flavors of kirsch, chocolate, dark plum and allspice, fresh and elegant, with a towering structure and intense red berry accents. Unctuous and long on the finish, showing loads of grip. Best from 2030 through 2060.
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Wine Enthusiast
A dark, black-fruited wine, with the fruit hanging off the hard tannins. The wine is dark and concentrated, the fruit expressing itself as fragrant black currants. This dry wine is very firm and destined for a serious, long-term future.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Warre's Vintage was picked beginning on September 18 at Quinta da Cavindha, with fruit also sourced from Quinta do Retiro and Quinta da Telhada. It is a blend of 37% Touriga Nacional, 23% Tinta Franca and 40% mixture of old vines. There is a lovely sea spray note on the 2011 Warre’s that emerges after ten minutes in the glass. It is nicely defined with a tangible mineral component. The palate is very well-balanced with fine tannins, very well-judged acidity and a languorous feel, as if everything is in place and it does not want to show off. This is a lovely, refined 2011 – one of the most elegant 2011s. This is a classic Warre's.
Range: 93-95
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The history of the Warre family in Portugal dates back to William Warre, who was born in India in 1706, where his parents and grandparents were long established members of the East India Company. In 1729, he arrived in Portugal and became a partner in the export company, Messrs. Clark, Thornton & Warre, which exported Portuguese wine among other goods. By the close of the 18th century, Warre’s had become one of the leading companies in the Port wine trade. His grandson, another William Warre, continued and grew the business while also maintaining an outstanding military career, contributing substantially towards the recovery of Portugal’s independence.
The Symington family’s ancestry in the Port trade spans a period of over 350 years, through 13 generations. They are descended from Andrew James Symington and Beatrice Atkinson who were married in Oporto in 1891. Andrew James arrived as a young man from Scotland in 1882 and was admitted to partnership in the firm of Warre & Co. in 1905 and in 1908 he became the soul owner of Warre & Co. Currently six members of the Symington family (five from the 13th generation in the Port trade) are actively involved in Warre’s day-to-day management, with the dedication and long-term commitment that are unique to a family-run business. From the vineyards through the winemaking, aging, and blending, a member of the family is directly responsible for every bottle of Warre’s Port produced. The family’s commitment to its wines is stronger than ever after 350 years, an unparalleled tradition in the Port trade.
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.