2011 Ramos Pinto Duas Quintas Reserva Douro- Portugal, Douro (8/16/2015)
Decanted 4 hours. Black plums and violets dominate the expressive nose. The drying tannins are prominent right up front at this young stage. I was impressed with how balanced the black fruit was and how there was just a touch of young oak showing. Far less than some other Douro wines have shown at this level of wine (I paid $37.00). Light spices, tar, graphite, and a splattering of mint. A seamless transition to the long finish rounded out a wonder young wine that should have a good mid term life ahead of it. I can’t recall ever having this before and I was impressed.
92 Points (92 pts.)
I’m assuming this a dry red from the port producer? I’d have a hard time spending $30+ on Portugese wines without tasting them ahead of time. I’m exempting Port from that general prejudice.
I’m with Andy on this one. It’s an excellent dry red (I’m also a big Ramos-Pinto fan in general) and fairly-priced. I’m not sure if I had the same vintage Andy did, but I loved it’s blue and black fruit (and the bit of something floral). Made me think of a genuine old world wine in texture and structure with the fruit notes I get from Australian Shiraz.
Yes, a regular red table wine. There is some pretty awesome stuff that drinks well above it’s price range coming out of Portugal right now. Sadly that won’t last forever as they have been getting some well deserved acclaim and prices have been slowly inching up.
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