I have tasted many, many excellent wines at this year’s Essência do Vinho fest in Porto’s Palácio da Bolsa, including a tasting of Barbeito’s 50+ year old bottlings conducted by Ricardo Diogo himself (a very memorable evening). This, however, is the one wine that has been etched more firmly in my memory. It is, in practical terms, a fortified version of Quinta da Gaivosa’s Vinha de Lordelo, one of their parcel wines, as the grapes for this port are the exact same ones. The nose is bewitching, with an extraordinary depth, complexity and precision in a VP so young. Sumptuous floral and decadent fruit - fresh, super ripe and dried - with endlessly changing balsamic nuances, herbs, mint, tobacco, earth, bulldozing your concentration. It’s artfully precise in a way that transcends the sheer size and imponence that is the trademark of so many young VPs. The palate has that contradictory airless dimension that only the most spellbinding wines can achieve, with luscious silky tannin and insane volume and persistence. If anything Squires’ 95 points are an understatement. Marked down as one of my WOTY.
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Which 50 year olds did Ricardo show?
I really don’t know Portugal wines at all, but looks like Quinta da Gaivosa is not far from where we are staying in the Douro in a few months, and will make an appointment based on this note.
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Some of my favorite Douro wines and the greatest in the Baixo Corgo (the coolest and least dry of the subregions). Domingos Alves de Sousa is a veteran producer who is famous essentially as a pioneer of Douro DOCs in the early 1990s, although he was already producing port before that.
Heaven!
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Nice! I haven’t had the first or last ones. Will be visiting Madeira this summer. Hopefully will have a chance to try them there!
This is truly an amazing Port - had it with Tiago a while ago over lunch
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