Winemaker Notes
This 2015 shows a deep color, with a powerful attack, full of intensity where one can easily find fresh fruity notes. The complex palate features blackberry, violet, and slate and a long, nuanced finish. It is very well structured so we believe it will age beautifully.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This gets your attention, with ebullient açai, blueberry and plum fruit aromas and flavors. Light, brambly grip is well-embedded throughout, while hints of melted licorice and milk and baker's chocolate fill in. Shows rock-solid grip through the finish. Best from 2030 through 2055.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Winemaker Xito Olazabal told me that he thinks Touriga Franca is the best grape for the backbone of Vintage Ports. The 2015 Vintage Port is dominated by Touriga Franca (45%), with a mix of others in a field blend. It was aged in used Chestnut vats for 12 months and comes in with just 90 grams per liter of residual sugar. This was seen previously as a barrel sample—this is the first look in bottle. Wonderfully elegant, this high-personality Port shows impressive mid-palate finesse to go with its fine structure. This is never even a little bit jammy. Some will criticize it, perhaps, for seeming a bit light. However, its calling cards are the exotic aromatics, freshness, transparency and precision. It smells of menthol, eucalyptus and cistus. The lifted fruit is wonderfully pure and clean, while there is a juicy finish laced with just a little blueberry and bitter chocolate. Its backbone has plenty of steel—it drank better some 48 hours later—and that steel became ever more obvious as it aired out. This still can improve notably in the cellar. It is not particularly dense, but the balanced combination of power and freshness may preserve it well. With age, this should develop well. Right now, I'm optimistic, but it does have things to prove, so let's be a little conservative just now.
Rating: 92+
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.