Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Gouveio Espumante Bruto (Vertice) has only five grams per liter of residual sugar—but about seven years on the lees. It does have 15% Arinto included this year. About half of the juice was fermented and aged in used French oak. With the basic stats, you know this is going to revolve around complexity, acidity and power. If that's what you like, this is an amazing value. (If not, step away; this is one of the producer's geek wines.) This is typically my fave of the producer's sparklers, but they sure aren't easy and fruity. In this year, the acidity is very fine here while the body is just average. It handles its wood well. Despite all that time on the lees, it seems relatively fresh and less oxidative than in some years I've seen, but it still has some of that, for sure. Pointed and focused, this is another beauty, but don't think it's a simple walk-around sparkler. It's quite a bargain, though. There were 8,938 bottles produced.
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
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.