Winemaker Notes
These wines can be drunk young by those who enjoy a more fruit driven style, but will also age superbly over the decades to come.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Intense blackberry, spice and stem aromas turn slightly floral. Full-bodied and medium sweet, with wonderfully integrated tannins and a finish of black pepper and spice. Beautifully balanced, with gorgeous fruit. A new small-production, single-vineyard Port from Vesuvio, one of the great Port estates of the Douro Valley. Best after 2020. 250 cases made.
-
Wine Enthusiast
From a parcel of old vines around the quinta chapel, this is a stunning wine. It has all the opulence we expect from Vesuvio, along with a density that is rare in this vintage. The tannins are there, but are equalled by the toffee, ripe fruit, figs, sweet chocolate. The whole wine is lightened by acidity, but will obviously age.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Quinta do Vesuvio Capela offers a very similar personality with a bit more of everything, depth, concentration, extract, and succulence. It, too, will offer pleasure through 2040.
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.