Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Starting with the 2022 Vintage Port, this beauty sports a dense purple hue as well as a blockbuster styled array of jammy blackberry, plums, sandalwood, baking spices, and a kiss of chocolate. It shows the warmer style of the vintage, yet there's nothing roasted or over-ripe, and it has remarkable purity, full-bodied richness, a stacked mid-palate, and velvety tannins. It's much more approachable and voluptuous compared to the Nacional and has a beautiful elegance and seamlessness that makes it hard to resist even today. For the tech geeks out there, the 2022 checks in as 19.5% alcohol, 89 grams per liter of residual sugar, 4.6 total acidity, and a pH of 3.61. It's going to require a decade to start to show some secondary aromatics, and it will have 40 years at a minimum of prime drinking. While the Nacional gets all the attention, don't miss this.
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Wine Spectator
A distinctive version, with menthol, pine and bay leaf hints peeking out from a zesty core of blackberry, boysenberry and mulberry paste flavors. Lots of bramble underscores the fruit through the finish, with a late tug of sappy licorice root. A Port of a different feather. Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Cão, Sousão and Tinta Roriz. Best from 2040 through 2060.
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James Suckling
A huge, monumental wine that will need decades to reach its prime. Heady, bold aromas of crushed blackberries, wood char and grilled plums lead to blackberry jam, road tar, dark chocolate and espresso soaked in sweetness and resting in a full body. Such a long, sweet and fruit-infused finish. Best from 2037 and several more decades.
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Vinous
The 2022 Quinta do Noval Vintage Port was trodden by foot in concrete lagares and spent 18 months in wooden casks. This bursts forth on the nose: black cherries, raspberry coulis, licorice, cigar humidor and light pine touches. Wonderful delineation and focus. The palate is very well balanced with superb definition. Pure black fruit is judiciously spiced, with hints of Christmas cake, black pepper and outstanding cohesion on the finish. At 2,600 cases of twelve, this is a relatively larger declaration compared to recent vintages, indicative of Christian Seely's belief in the vintage.
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Wine Enthusiast
The Vintage Port from Noval is a classic. Its big structure, game aroma and dried fruit flavors measure up against layers of tannins and rich black fruits. Set for long-term aging, don't start drinking until 2033.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Vintage Port was produced with a field blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa and Sousão, a selection of the best lots from different plots in the property. For this vintage, seven plots were used from the Pinhão Valley and one from the Roncão Valley, a property they purchased behind Noval, a very powerful place. It was produced in the traditional way: foot trodden in the stone lagars and matured in oak casks for 18 months in the acclimatized cellars in the property in the Douro Valley. It has 19.5% alcohol, with a pH of 3.61 and 89 grams of sugar. This is very tannic and concentrated, with noticeable sweetness, with a big structure. It's quite powerful, a little foursquare, 31,200 bottles produced.
Rating: 94+
One of the oldest port houses, Quinta do Noval is also arguably the greatest. It is unique among top port houses in that most of the ports are made from estate-grown fruit and, notably, all of the vintage Noval wines are from the single Quinta do Noval vineyard. In addition, it is difficult to elaborate on Quinta do Noval without mentioning Nacional, the legendary port made from a 6 acre parcel of ungrafted vines. When declared, only 200-300 cases of Nacional will be made, and instantly become the most sought after port in the world. Many vintages of Nacional are considered as the finest ports, and some of the finest wines, ever made.
Noval is mentioned in land registries going back to 1715, and has been sold just twice in that time, once in the late 19th century, and to its present owners in 1993. Noval has, however, a reputation for being an innovative, independent producer. Noval’s focus on its vineyard and estate ports distinguishes it, but there are numerous other areas in which it has been a pioneer:
- Noval was the first to introduce stencilled bottles in the 1920s.
- Noval pioneered the concept of Old Tawnies with an indication of age.
- In 1958, Noval was the first to introduce a late-bottled vintage (LBV).
The astonishing terraced vineyards of Noval, perched above the Douro and Pinhao rivers, are an infertile schist, and not soil as much as sheer rock. The elevation of the vineyards goes from just above river level to 1,200 feet, with density at about 2,000 vines per acre, and vines producing on average 30-35 hectoliters per hectare. The tremendous rewards of the work done at the estate over the last fifteen years are visible across the range of Noval ports, and have placed Noval a step ahead of everyone in the Douro.
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.