Winemaker Notes
An intense wine with floral, blackcurrant, and cassis notes and a powerful and attractive aroma arising from the predominance of Touriga Nacional combined with Alicante Bouschet. The presence of Touriga Franca and Sousão also adds complexity and spice.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Densely packed, with lots of warmed fig, mulled blueberry, açai berry and blackberry paste flavors rolling through, scored with graphite and tar notes, carrying through a finish that has a smoldering feel. A long licorice snap echo adds a lip-smacking hint. Best from 2035 through 2055.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Vintage Port is a blend of 43% Touriga Nacional, 25% Touriga Franca and 17% Alicante Bouschet, with Tinta Amarela and Sousão filling out the rest. It comes in with 115 grams of residual sugar. If this Quinta has a hallmark to me, it is the expressive, gorgeous fruit. It has a seductive feel, but it is also muscular and intense. It is one of the most muscular in the Symington stable this year, with the concentration to soak up the power. I'd give this the nod for the moment over the 2015, but they are pretty close, granting that I do not have them side by side. They may wind up in more or less the same place overall in the long run. We'll see. That said, this seems superb. Bottled in May 2018 and to be released in October 2018, there were 1,220 cases produced.
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Decanter
Lovely warm country aromas, this is ripe, open and very full in style. Super-ripe cassis flavours, broad and fleshy, backed by weighty tannins combined with lovely definition. Finishes with a powerful flourish, very impressive. Made using a relatively high proportion of Alicante Bouschet (17%) alongside Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca. 1,220 cases produced in total.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a jammy, ripe and deeply rich wine. Its firm tannins are fully integrated with the powerful black fruits to give a wine with great potential longevity. The end has an almost fresh aftertaste. Drink from 2027.
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James Suckling
The greenness and stalkiness comes through here with a minty, fennel character as well as blueberry and violet undertones. Peppermint, too. Full-bodied and off-dry, showcasing blue fruits and a spicy, fresh finish. Try in 2022.
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. To learn more, see our full Port Wine Guide
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.