Wine of the Week – a friendly and great value Douro red

I love the wines from the Douro Valley in Portugal. This beautiful part of the world is an isolated, harsh, arid landscape that produces fabulous world class wines, as well as Ports. The wines tend to be red, but some lovely whites are made too. Douro wines are usually very high quality and although they can be pretty expensive, they generally deliver very good value for the quality that you get.

Map of the Douro – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement. Quinta do Noval is marked, just north of Pinhão.

Recently I have presented a couple of tastings on the wines of the Douro, which were very well received indeed and I will write about those soon. In the meantime I tasted a red wine from the Douro that delivered a huge amount of pleasure at a very good price, so I have made it my Wine of the Week.

Quinta do Noval.

2013 Lot 20 Douro Grande Reserva
DOC Douro
Douro Valley
Portugal

My normal go to good value Douro red wine is the Altano Organic – and which is currently on offer from Waitrose at just £7.99 – which I like very much, but this is another terrific wine that hows what the region can do at a very good price. It is a limited production wine – just 41,000 bottles – and forms part of Aldi’s Lot Series, which contains some other very good wines.

This Douro Valley red is a blend of three of the most important local grapes; Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo) and is made for Aldi by Quinta do Noval, which is one of the most famous and respected producers of Ports and table wines in the region. I recently showed their excellent 2010 Cedro do Noval and magnificent 2007 Quinta do Noval at a tasting and they were really appreciated.

The view from my room at Quinta do Nova a couple of years ago. The closest building is the winery.

The colour is a deep red, while the nose offers ripe black and red fruits together with liquorice, sweet spice and black pepper. The palate is incredibly fruity with black cherry, blackberry, plum, chocolate, pepper, wild herbs, a touch of spice and supple, smooth tannins. This is a wine that is clearly made to be drunk young. It is very soft, fruity, quite rich, herbal and spicy which makes it very attractive and easy to drink – 88/100 points.

Available in the UK from Aldi for £9.99 per bottle – a case of 6 bottles  is £59.94 and delivered for free.

This is a delicious wine that shows some of the flavour profile the Douro region gives, but a a very good price and in a very drinkable style, it’s well worth a try.

Quinta da Leda – a great Douro wine and my Wine of the Week

The beautiful Quinta da Leda – photo courtesy of the estate.

Many of you will know that I really admire the wines of Portugal‘s Douro Valley. It is a world class wine region that is of course most famous for being the home of Port, but over the last two decades or so has really made its mark in unfortified table wines too. The quality can be very high, at many different price points and there are some seriously good producers whose wines are well worth seeking out.

One of which is Casa Ferreirinha, which grew out of the A. A. Ferreira Port house which was famously run by Dona Antónia Ferreira – often known as Ferreirinha – during the nineteenth century. She was a close friend of Joseph James Forrester, Baron Forrester, who before his untimely death in 1861, had apparently campaigned for the Douro Valley to start making unfortified wine rather than sweet and fortified Ports.

Perhaps that relationship planted a seed that was finally acted upon nearly a century later in 1952, when Casa Ferreirinha produced the first vintage of their occasionally released and legendary Barca Velha. That was the first non fortified red from the Douro for a few centuries and the first one to be commercially released and it was a hit, achieving cult status to equal Spain’s great Vega Sicilia. They don’t make it every year, in fact only 18 vintages have been released so far in total. When they don’t make Barca Velha, the finest barrels they produce make the almost equally illustrious Casa Ferreirinha Reserva Especial. Both of these wines are aged for a long time in oak before release.

The beautiful Quinta da Leda – photo courtesy of the estate.

In 1979 Casa Ferreirinha bought the promising, but unplanted  Quinta da Leda estate in Almendra just a few kilometres from the Spanish frontier. To see whether it lived up to their expectations they planted 25 hectares of Tinta Roriz – aka Tempranillo -, Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca, Touriga Nacional and Tinta Cão vines. This is one of the great joys of Portugal, and especially the Douro, great wines that can rub shoulders with the most famous and most expensive from anywhere, all made from indigenous grape varieties.

Wine map of the Douro, Quinta da Leda is just to the west of Barca d’Alva on the south bank of the Douro near Spain. Click on the map for a larger view.

Within a decade they could see that their hopes for the plot had been exceeded and from the 1980s the vineyard had become the main source for Barca Velha and Reserva Especial, as well as producing Single Quinta Port. In the end the site was just so good that they decided to make a single vineyard wine from it, but only in the in the better years. The big difference with Barca Velha, apart from being a single vineyard wine, is that Quinta da Leda is aged for a more normal 12 months or so in oak, which makes it a fresher style and it can be enjoyed younger too. Sadly I cannot comment as I have not yet tried any Barca Velha, despite owning a brace of bottles of the 1982 vintage. The project has been a great success and a dedicated winery was built in time for the 2001 vintage, making these true domaine bottled wines.

Recently I was fortunate enough to attend a tasting of Quinta da Leda wines that ranged from that very first 1997 vintage to the as yet unreleased, but precociously delicious, 2014.

The beautiful Quinta da Leda – photo courtesy of the estate.

I loved them all and would happily drink any of them with a slow roast shoulder of lamb, but it was remarkable how I kept really loving the wines that came from great Port vintages – the 2007 and the 2011, stood out especially for me, but so too did the 2001, which is an underrated Port vintage, mainly being a source of Single Quinta Ports. However, without a doubt my favourite was the 2011 and so I have made it my Wine of the Week.

2011 Quinta da Leda
Casa Ferreirinha
Sogrape Vinhos
DOC / PDO Douro
Portugal

A single vineyard blend of 45% Touriga Franca, 40% Touriga Nacional and 15% Tinta Roriz. The grapes were destined and fermented in stainless steel tanks before being aged for 18 months in 225 litre French oak barrels, 50% of which were new.

The wine is currently an attractive opaque purple, deep, but bright and alive.

The nose offers intense, spicy sugar plums and blueberry, as well as cedar and earthy, spicy, savoury notes. There is a touch of cigar smoke as well as some mocha and herbs.

The palate is pretty full-bodied, but has a lovely texture, with concentrated, lush sweet black fruit together with some refreshing acidity and minerality. The tannins are taut but not overwhelming and there is a dusting of black pepper, while that smoke, spice and mocha vie with the lovely sweetness of the fruit on the long finish. All in all it is very concentrated, very exciting, beautifully balanced and utterly delicious with a touch of something pretty about it that helps to balance the power and the 14.5% alcohol – 94/100 points.

Available in the UK from £35 per bottle from Slurp, Lay & Wheeler, Farr Vintners, Corking Wines, The Wine Library, Hedonism, Harrods and AG Wines.
For US stockists, click here.

I actually really liked the wine as it is now, I loved the slightly tight feel of the tannins and the mocha-like oak, but it will develop beautifully too and become more complex over time. So you see, it isn’t only the 2015 Clarets that you should put in your cellar this year.

New Wine of the Week – a fine red from Portugal’s Douro Valley

The beautiful terraced vineyards of the Douro Valley.

Portuguese wine is so underrated. The country is awash with wonderful wine regions, fabulous grape varieties and winemakers with real ability and passion. It troubles me that so few Portuguese wines are generally available in the UK, it suggests that there is very little demand and that is a shame.

However, for those of us who are open minded enough to enjoy them, the few Portuguese wines that are available are real stars and really reward the dedicated – try this great value gem here as an example. How they turn out such quality at that price amazes me.

Recently I tasted yet another great wine from the Douro – two in fact as I also tried the magnificent and beautifully mature Duas Quintas Reserva which is available from the Wine Society for £25 a bottle – and it reminded me how much I love the wines from this exciting region.

The Douro rises in Spain where it is known as the Duero River, it serves as the border between the two Iberian neighbours for quite a way, before heading West and cutting Portugal in half. In Portugal the rugged, hot, slate slopes produce the grapes for Port, but in recent years the region has become one of the most exciting for un-fortified wine too. Although mainly red, although there are some lovely whites as well – I wrote about the region’s development here.

Bruno Prats (left) and Charles Symington (right), wine makers – photo courtesy of the winery.

The wine I tasted was produced by Prats & Symington and it was so good that I decided to make it my Wine of the Week.

2012 Post Scriptum de Chryseia
DOC Douro
Prats & Symington
Portugal

The Symington family are the pre-eminent growers in the Douro Valley and own many of the famous Port houses – Grahams, Dows, Cockburns – as well as the great Quintas – or wine estates – that produce their grapes. In 1998 they decided to get serious and ambitious about their non-fortified wines as well. To this end they went into partnership with Bruno Pats who is the former owner of Château Cos-d’Estournel in Saint-Estèphe (also click here) in the Médoc area of Bordeaux. Because the Douro is such a famous and old established wine region, it is amazing to realise that this only happened in 1998 – non-fortified wines are a newish thing here. I must also mention that the Symington family produces some brilliant table wines with no Prats involvement too, Quinta do Vesuvio is one of the very best red Douro wines that I have tasted – it’s available here -, while its second wine the Pombal do Vesuvio is nearly as fine. For stylish moire everyday drinking I am a huge fan of their Altano range – especially the superb Organic Quinta do Ataide and Quinta do Ataide Reserva.

The wine they produced was called Chryseia (US stockist here)- it means golden in Greek, just as Douro does in Portuguese – and it was made from Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca grapes, grown at Quinta de Roriz and Quinta da Perdiz and it became an instant classic, highly prized and much in demand.

In 2002 they launched Post Scriptum, which while it is described as a partner, really acts as a second wine and uses a second selection of the fruit. I have tasted many vintages of it though and the wine is always first-rate.

The vineyard, clearly showing the wonderful decayed slate, or schist soils – photo courtesy of the winery.

The 2012 is 53% Touriga Franca, 45% Touriga Nacional and a little dollop of other Douro grapes, most likely Tinto Roriz – which is Tempranillo. After a rigorous selection, the grapes undergo a cold fermentation and the finished wine is aged for 13 months in 400 litre French oak barrels.

As soon as you sniff it you can tell this is a rather special. There are rich black fruit notes, floral notes, spices, warm, rocky mineral notes and a light dusting of smoky tobacco.

The palate is full, but velvety smooth with the tannins giving just a touch of firmness. There is black cherry and black plum a plenty, together with liquorice and eucalyptus characters. It is concentrated and rich, but beautifully balanced with a lovely seem of fresh acidity and the wonderful salty minerality that is the hallmark of the Douro – 92/100 points.

This is a great value fine wine and a real treat. The quality is superb and it goes brilliantly with all sorts of food, especially stews, casseroles and roast meats – I had it with lamb and it was superb.

Available in the UK at £17.50 per bottle from The Wine Society.
The equally fine 2013 vintage is available from Tanners for £20.90 per bottle.
For US stockists, click here.

2012 – a look back at the best bits

Me with my favourite vintage of Tsantalis Rapsani, Greece – Photo by kind permission – ©Brett Jones http://www.thewinemaestro.co.uk

2012 was an amazing year for Quentin Sadler’s Wine Page. I tasted some wonderful wines, visited some amazing places, was shortlisted for an award and my readership doubled – all trends that I hope continue in 2013.

Me & fellow traveller Patrick Maclart hard at work on Mount Athos, Greece – Photo by kind permission – ©Brett Jones http://www.thewinemaestro.co.uk

To celebrate all this I thought that I would start the new year with a backward glance at some of my highlights of 2012 – so you can click on the links to read the pieces if you missed them first time around, or just enjoy them all over again.

Those of you who know me well know how much I relish new wine experiences and 2012 got off to a cracking start for me with a tasting of wines from the Ukraine. It was a fascinating glimpse at a fledgling wine industry just setting out on the path to producing quality wines and there was much promise there.

Champagne

Richard Goffrey at the Dom Pérignon launch

Champagne
One of the most sophisticated and stylish experiences of 2012 for me was the launch of the 2003 Dom Pérignon. In many ways the whole piece of theatre of the launch was bonkers, but the wine was sublime and there is no doubt that my sparkling wine of the year was the 2003 Dom Pérignon, it was possibly my wine of the year too – I just wish I could afford it.

2003 Dom Pérignon
The aromas were astonishingly lifted and perfumed with fresh floral notes, lemon zest and lemon peel as well as richer tones of lemon curd and the flaky pastry that shows yeast autolysis as well as pine nuts hinting at a creamy ripeness to come. Running through the whole bouquet were strands of minerality, iodine, saline and wet stones that promise well for the acidity on the palate.

The palate was a revelation, this was not simply fresh and lively, indeed it was subtly the opposite, being textured and intense. The mouthfeel was silky with the merest hint of creamy ripeness, while the acidity was in a supporting role and never dominated. Rather wonderfully there was a twist of deep green olive bitterness to the wine’s finish, even a touch of tannin which accentuated the mouthfeel – those phenolics perhaps? This makes it a real wine to appreciate and enjoy rather than a straight-forward Champagne to frivolously guzzle. It offers soft richness and poised balancing acidity. It has ripe fruit in abundance, but nothing that overpowers or dominates as a single flavour and it has taut minerality – in short it has tension. The competing sensations vie with each other for your attention, which makes it fascinating to drink.

The finish was of epic proportions, I was still tasting it more than 2 minutes after I had drunk it. I would without doubt give it a gold medal in any wine competition I was judging, so cannot help but award it a very high mark – 94/100 points.

English Wine

Vines at Plumpton, Sussex

Even less likely inhabitants of the Sussex countryside!

One of the things I really enjoy about writing my wine page is the scope it gives to stray far and wide. Well in 2012 I used a few chances to taste some wines made nearby, but that in many ways seem off the beaten track – English wine. I have enjoyed English wine on and off for 20 years or more, but I have never been more thrilled by the quality or more confident in the future than I am now. You can read the beginnings of my optimism about English wine here.

Pruning at Stopham – photo by kind permission

This delight in English wine continued with a pair of exciting wines from the Stopham Estate, in Sussex, that seem to be a possible pointer to the future. Their 2010 Stopham Pinot Blanc and 2010 Stopham Pinot Gris struck me as being excellent quality and sensibly priced, so were able to hold their own against wine from anywhere – and indeed they did sell out pretty quick as production is small.

My English experiences contiuned later in the year when I was able to taste this amazing wine:

2006 Eglantine Vineyard North Star

which is a stunning dessert wine made in Leicestershire of all places.

And while Welsh wine is clearly not from England I thought this the right place to mention that I tried some excellent Welsh wines in 2012, read about them here.

Hungarian Wine
My ongoing quest for different styles of wine and unusual grape varieties caused me to try a couple of fascinating wines from the tiny region of Somlo in Hungary and I would highly recommend them as something a little different, but very high in quality.

My Italian Trip

The charming Eva & Leonardo Beconcini

Pinzimonio – one of Eva’s many lovely cats

My first trip of 2012 was a personal pilgrimage to Tuscany to visit an estate that not only makes Chianti, but grows some Tempranillo as well. What’s more it isn’t just a marketing ploy, they have always grown it here. I got excited by this and wanted to see the place for myself and try the wines. In the end I had a fabulous time walking the vineyard and tasting the terrific wines that Leonardo Beconcini makes at Pietro Beconcini Agricola. This was followed by the most glorious lunch made by his charming wife Eva before finally being introduced to their many cats.

Cinque Terre

Manarola one of the Cinque Terre

Cesare Scorza’s shop in Manarola

I was loathe to leave Italy, so took the chance to visit a nearby area that was completely new to me. The Cinque Terre is a short train ride away from Pisa and is an amazing place to visit. I highly recommend it for its wildly beautiful landscape with an air of mystery as well as the incredibly attractive towns that give the region its name, of course it also produces some lovely wines and I was fortunate enough to meet two passionate local wine makers.

My Vinho Verde Trip

Me dressed for the weather in Vinho Verde

In all my years in the wine trade I had never visited Vinho Verde, buts as the sheer quality of the wines had impressed themselves on me of late, I was determined to put that right and in May I was able to do just that. I learnt a lot, not least why that region of Portugal is so green. Boy does it rain there, I was quite relieved that my hotel room was on the twelfth floor as I expected all the lower ones to flood at any moment. However, in the brief moments when it wasn’t raining the scenery was lovely and I visited some terrific winemakers and tasted much more variety in the different Vinho Verdes than most people expect – the place makes all colours and styles.

My Spanish Trip

The Riojan landscape

No sooner had I returned from Portugal than I returned to Iberia with some colleagues for a trip to northern Spain that took in Rioja, Navarra and Ribera del Duero. We were guests of Bodegas Faustino and it was a delightful experience and one of the many highlights was the tapas bar crawl of Logroño, it was a memory to cherish and I enjoy reading about it every now and again.

Stylish pintxos – Basque Tapas – in Bilbao

My Greek Trip

Looking from the Rapsani vineyards east towards the sea

The border between Mount Athos & Greece

In a fabulous year for trips one stood out from all the others. In June I visited the vineyards of northern Greece with some fellow bloggers as the guest of Tsantalis and it was an incredible experience. We visited quite a few regions and beautiful places and had experiences that will stick in my memory for ever. The wines were fabulous, as was the food and the hospitality of the people. The one downside was that it was an all male trip as we went to the closed monastic settlement of Mount Athos and you can read about that here..

New Experiences

George Sandeman – complete with halo

In June I was invited to an amazing dinner that paired Sandeman Tawny Ports with Japanese food. I only went because the idea seemed completely mad and it was hosted by George Sandeman, but it was a delightful experience and really opened my eyes as to what is possible and enjoyable with food and wine pairing. I hope to repeat it with American barbecue food as it seems to me that could be a brilliant match with Tawny Port.

Southern Italian Delights
I have never been to Sicily, but hope to put that right soon, as I have become utterly captivated by the exciting wines of southern Italy, including Sicily. So far I have more experience of the whites and they are so good they deserve to be more widely appreciated. I wrote about some fantastic white wines here.

http://www.domainejones.com

Shades of Grey
In November I was moved to write about some more unusual grape varieties that have ‘gris’ in their name. It seems that most people know Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio, but I have become very excited by Sauvignon Gris and Grenache Gris and decided it was time to speak out about some of the lovely wines made from these grapes – you can read the piece here.

Chile Branches Out

The wild side of Chile at Luis Felipe Edwards 2003

This year I was delighted to be able to taste some really excellent Chilean wines made from blends and slightly more unusual grapes, so Chile remains a wine producing country to watch – read about some of the wines here.

Classic French Regions

My Loire Valley Trip

Angers from the Castle ramparts

The Loire valley personified

It was quite a year for trips and one of my unexpected highlights was a visit to the Loire Valley. I visited the area around Angers with a group of fellow bloggers and we tasted some fabulous wines and enjoyed some superb meals, but for me the centrepiece was a visit to Savennières whose wines had never really impressed me in the past, so I wanted top see what I was missing.

Burgundy

The delights of Beaune

Aloxe-Corton

In my rush to experience the new, I didn’t leave the classics behind though and in October I presented a sumptuous tasting of red Burgundies from the house of Louis Jadot. It was aterrific experience and a wonderful insight into how these great wines develop. Read about it here. I also enjoyed a wonderful visit to Burgundy as a guest of the Discover the Origin campaign and I shall be writing about that soon, however I did taste my white wine of the year on this trip:

2010 Bourgogne Blanc Cuvée Oligocène
A.c. Bourgogne Blanc
Patrick Javiller
Do not be misled by the humble appellation, this is a great wine. The vineyard –  les Pellans – is only not Meursault by a technicality, in fact half of it is within the appellation as this piece of land is in the village of Meursault, but not all of it has the A.C., which is why this wine comes in at a fair price. This really shows what white burgundy is about. It illustrates terroir and offers plenty of richness as well as elegance and tension. What’s more it is absolutely delicious and great with almost and elegant fish dish or white meat. 91/100 points – it gains points though for being stunning value for money.

Available in the UK from James Nicholson and Goedhuis & Co at around £20 a bottle.

Bordeaux

As French as tarte aux pommes

As if that wasn’t enough, I was then invited to Bordeaux as the guest of Yvon Mau and was able to visit a great swathe of impressive Châteaux and try some superb wines that made me finally realise that there is some wonderful wine from Bordeaux available at non stratospheric prices. I will write more about some of these soon, but this piece gives you some of the flavour and tells you about a stunning wine from Montagne-St Émilion that has my vote as my red wine of the year, if for no other reason than it so exceeded my expectations of what a wine from this appellation can offer:

2009 Chateau Guadet Plaisance
Montagne Saint-Emilion
The colour was an intense opaque purpley black that managed to be vivid and bright as well as dark.
The nose was dominated by cedar, spice & singed meat aromas, together with brooding deep plum and fresher redcurrant and a touch of a ripe sweet, almost creamy note.
The palate was luscious, round and concentrated with a smoky sweet ripe fruit quality together with sweet ripe tannins and firm oak structure, all balanced by a taut freshness. All this gives a gloriously succulent texture and a spicy bite to the palate. Even the oak tasted nice, like mocha mixed with toasted coconut. There is an attractive and elegant opulence to it and I suspect it will age superbly, but it really is delicious now too. I consider it deserving of a gold medal if I was judging it in a competition, so award it 91/100 points – it gains points for being great value and seductive.

All in all 2012 was a great year for Quentin Sadler’s Wine Pages. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts and that you found it useful and some of you tried the wines that I wrote about. Please keep coming back in 2013 and do leave comments – it is always nice to hear from you.