Quinta do Passadouro Passa Tinto 2015
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Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Deep red in color, this wine features aromas of ripe blackberry, spice, and minerality. The palate is balanced with silky tannins.
Pair with veal chops, osso bucco, or smoked gouda.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
White pepper notes underpin the fresh boysenberry and crushed red plum flavors in this well-crafted red, with graphite, tea and licorice details intermingling on the moderately tannic finish. Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Roriz. Drink now through 2024
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Tinto, the regular red from Passadouro, is a blend of 40% Touriga Nacional and 30% each of Touriga Franca and Tinta Roriz, aged for 16 months in 90% used French oak. It comes in at 13.5% alcohol. Elegant and refined, this Tinto is nicely done, adding a layer of concentration to the Passa and more structure. As it sits, it demonstrates some grip and more length on the finish. It becomes more serious as it goes on, all the while retaining remarkable elegance and controlled, lifted flavors. This will be roughly approachable on release (which should happen not long after this note appears), but it should age pretty well, too.
Other Vintages
2014-
Wine &
Spirits
Quinta do Passadouro is located on the left bank of the Pinhão River in the Douro Valley. The estate is co-owned by the Bohrmann family and Jorge Serôdio Borges, whose family has been in the Port wine business for years. As a testament to his pedigree in the industry, Jorge also serves as director and head winemaker. This sprawling property in the heart of the Douro’s Cima Corgo consists of two different vineyards: Quinta do Passadouro and Quinta do Sibio. Both vineyards boast a range of indigenous varieties native to the Douro, including Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Sousão and Tinta Barroca. The Passadouro vineyard has roots with the Niepoort Port house, where it used to supply grapes for their renowned Quinta do Passadouro Niepoort Vintage Port. Today, winemaker/owner Jorge Serôdio Borges focuses on making top-level dry and unfortified wines from the same vineyard. Natural farming is prioritized, and no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides are used. Irrigation is minimal and performed only by hand, and indigenous yeasts are used for almost all fermentation. Organic certification by Sativa is pending.
Due to the steep grade of the slopes where the vineyards are planted and the narrow width of the terraces, all grapes must be picked by hand. Traditional foot-treading in granite lagares is often employed, which yields fine, silky tannins since the process is so gentle on the grapes. The wines are all aged in French barriques.
Borges’s early experience includes working as an oenologist at Niepoort. Now, in addition to owning Quinta do Passadouro, he is and his wife, Sandra Tavares da Silva (also an oenologist) own the winery Wine & Soul. Sandra, who has the distinction of being the Douro's first female winemaker, gained her experience at Quinta do Vale D. Maria in the Douro and at her family’s estate of Chocapalha in Estremadura.
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.