Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2003 Pintas Vintage Port, the beginning of our vertical this issue and the first Pintas Port, is a field blend from very old vines (some 80 years or so) coming in at 115 grams per liter of residual sugar. Youthful, sweet and succulent, this is all about sex appeal on opening, even now at age 14. Tannins lurk in the background, though, and this acquires some character and a little complexity with air, the sugar receding and older-Port flavors popping up here and there. It then seemed a lot more complex. Indeed, it seemed very fine every time I took a first pour of it over several days. It seemed terrific again, for instance, on the second day tasted, even when I thought it had turned boring and flabby after several hours open on the first day. At that point, day one, I was ready to give up on it. Yet the next day it was super again. It's the nature of the vintage—this just lacks the lift and definition to the fruit that many of the others have. Yet it still has its moments. Sometimes I liked it a lot. It is an excellent debut, ready to drink, but capable of holding another couple of decades or so. Let's be conservative for the moment.
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.