Quinta do Vale Meao Douro 2018
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Product Details
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Blend: 50% Touriga Nacional, 45% Touriga Franca, 3% Tinta Barroca, 2% Tinta Roriz
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This stellar wine comes from one of the grandest estates in the Douro, created in the 19th century by Dona Antónia Ferreira, whose family still owns it. For such a massive wine, it is surprisingly elegant. It is dense with tannins and black fruits but also sophisticated and certainly ageworthy. Drink from 2026. Cellar Selection.
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James Suckling
Aromas of plum, mulberry, blueberry, oyster shell, olive, cedar, mocha and oregano. It’s medium-to full-bodied with firm, velvety and chewy tannins. Layered and so supple with a beautiful, transparent and polished core of blue fruit. Racy. Very fine and long. A blend of 50% touriga nacional, 45% touriga franca, 3% tinta barroca and 2% tinta roriz. Delicious already, but better from 2022.
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Wine Spectator
A beautiful red that shows both finesse and power, layering glossy ripe cherry, raspberry reduction and orange peel notes with spice, anise and dried violet accents. Enticing, with mineral, Earl Grey tea, mocha and wild herb details echoing on the long finish. Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca and Tinta Roriz. Best from 2022 through 2035.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Tinto is a 50/45 blend of Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca, with dollops of Tinta Roriz and Tinta Barroca filling out the blend, all aged for 16 months in 50% new and 50% second use French oak. It comes in at 14.3% alcohol. Creamier and more sensual than the Meandro this issue, this mostly shows off its oak right now. That will get better as this ages and pulls in the wood. Even now, though, it drinks fairly well. The tannins are ripe, although this does show more power with extended aeration. It tastes great and retains the elegance for which this bottling is famed. It should age well and it should improve more.
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Wine & Spirits
The Olazabal family farms this Douro Superior quinta where vines fan out along a fault line of granite and schist. The riverside blocks produce a generous and bold wine, the 2018 virtually half and half tourigas nacional and franca, with small additions of tintas barroca and roriz. Briefly foot trod (with 10 percent of the stems), this ferments in small vats then ages in French oak barriques (60 percent new). The oak dominates the wine for now, surrounding blackberry, date and olive notes in mouth-coating wood tannins. There’s savory fruit detail underneath, needing bottle age to emerge.
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Quinta do Vale Meão was founded in 1877 by the legendary Dona Antònia Adelaide Ferreira and is owned today by her great-great-grandson Francisco “Xito” Olazabal. Vale Meão built its reputation supplying fruit to the famed 250-year-old Port house Ferreira. In 1952, its vineyards were chosen to create a revolutionary wine, which for decades would be the Douro’s only globally recognized table wine.
Vale Meão began a new life in 1998 when Xito realized his dream of making his own wine from his family’s estate. Success came quickly, and in 2011, Portugal’s leading wine publication Revista de Vinhos named Xito Winemaker of the Year. Today Xito is recognized as a leading figure in the Douro table wine revolution, which has captured the attention of the wine world.
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.