Quinta do Crasto Vinha Maria Teresa 2011

  • 96 Wine
    Spectator
  • 96 Robert
    Parker
  • 94 Wine
    Enthusiast
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Quinta do Crasto Vinha Maria Teresa 2011 Front Label
Quinta do Crasto Vinha Maria Teresa 2011 Front Label

Product Details


Varietal

Region

Producer

Vintage
2011

Size
750ML

ABV
15%

Features
Boutique

Your Rating

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Somm Note

Winemaker Notes

Opaque color with deep violet hues. Very intense and elegant aromas, with prominent gum cistus, dark chocolate and fresh spice notes. Great complexity, depth and persistence on the nose. Fresh and elegant beginning on the palate. Good volume and a solid structure, and fine-textured silky tannins. The flavors on the palate show distinct and complex balsamic hints and notes of gum cistus, fresh spice and red fruit. Pleasant and lingering finish. This is a distinct, powerful and elegant wine that will evolve in the bottle for many years.

Professional Ratings

  • 96
    Rich, pure and very silky, with a lavishly perfumed, floral aroma and concentrated dark plum and kirsch flavors that are intensely spiced. Mint and chocolate notes show on the refined finish. This should benefit from time in the cellar.
  • 96
    The 2011 Vinha Maria Teresa is part of this issue's vertical. Of the wines in this issue's Maria Teresa vertical, this could well be the best, although no one should actually think of drinking it just yet. It is bursting with flavor, but then they all like to show off their intensity of flavor. This fabulous Maria Teresa is a potential winner of the vertical because it is the best balanced of any of them, adding serious but reasonably controlled tannins while seeming rather elegant in the mid-palate. I reiterate: don't drink this now. It is approachable in a sense, especially with decanting. It won't sear your tongue. It may taunt and tempt you. Be strong. Show some willpower. As time goes on, this bottling is getting more civilized, but it is still nowhere near peak and there are a few too many sharp edges. The longer it was open, the better (and more intense) it got. Come back around 2020. Maybe longer. By my measure, this is one of the greatest wines Crasto has made and a great Maria Teresa. If it continues developing well, it might even be entitled to an uptick. It should continue to age gracefully into the 2030s. At some point, let's hope we'll get another status check in there somewhere as I do like to be conservative in drinking windows and take things in stages.
  • 94
    From an old block of vines, producing a field blend of many different varieties, Vinha Maria Teresa is a major wine. Its low yields, firm tannins and dense wood aging give it great staying power. Black plum surge through the chocolate flavors and are given point by acidity.
    Cellar Selection

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  • 95 Robert
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    Spectator
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    Enthusiast
Quinta do Crasto

Quinta do Crasto

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Quinta do Crasto, Portugal
Quinta do Crasto Winery Video

Nestled on a privileged location in the Douro, Quinta do Crasto is one of the oldest winemaking estates in the region – the name ‘Crasto’ is derived from the Latin word ‘castrum’, which means ‘Roman fort’. The first known references to Quinta do Crasto can be traced back to 1615, long before the Douro became the world’s first Demarcated Wine Region in 1756. In the early 1900s, Quinta do Crasto was purchased by Constantino de Almeida, the founder of the famous Constantino Port house. Today, his granddaughter, Leonor Roquette, and her husband Jorge Roquette own and manage the estate, together with their sons, Miguel and Tomás. The Roquette family has invested tremendous time, attention, and resources to rebuild and expand the vineyards and facilities to produce top quality Port and Douro table wines. Vineyard mapping, DNA-matched replanting, a new state-of-the-art wine cellar and centuries of tradition mean that no detail in the winemaking and vineyard management is overlooked.

Quinta do Crasto produces different styles of port and table wines each year. Together with their winemakers and their entire team, they seek to produce year after year wines that display the unique and beautiful characteristics of the Douro, through a tireless devotion to tradition, integrity and excellence.

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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.

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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.

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