Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The dense purple-colored, seriously-structured 2000 Vau Vintage reveals outstanding ripeness in addition to abundant amounts of black currant, cassis, and mineral characteristics as well as firm tannin in the finish. Fuller-bodied, richer, and significantly more impressive than its sibling, it will drink well between 2007-2020.
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Wine Enthusiast
Sandeman's single quinta vintage is based around Quinta do Vau. Made in a deliberately fruity style, it is full of blackberry fruit jam flavors, with fleshy plums. The tannins are low-key, just showing through as a core of dryness. This is not a long-term aging vintage—best in 5–10 years.
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Wine Spectator
Firm, fresh and complex, with an array of glazed apricot, ginger, maple and cream flavors. Features notes of truffle and mineral on the crisp finish. Drink now.
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.