Quinta do Noval Vintage 2020 Port

€ 95.00

Quinta do Noval Vintage Port is characterized by its purity of fruit and a fine and delicate quality that is typical of the wines of the property in general but which finds its most remarkable and enduring expression in the Vintage Ports. Equilibrium, harmony, finesse and elegance characterize our great Vintage Ports, which are declared only in great years and only when the wines come up to Noval’s exacting standards.

Noval follows its own path in its approach to Vintage Port. If we believe that we have wines of the quality and personality to join the ranks of the Quinta do Noval Vintage Ports of previous years, we will bottle it and declare it, even if this means declaring several years in a row, and even if it means, as is often the case, bottling only a few hundred cases of Quinta do Noval Vintage Port, representing a tiny percentage of the total production of the Quinta. Of course, in very great years, when there is unanimity among Port producers, and a General Declaration results, Quinta do Noval will declare its wine also, and perhaps with a little more wine than usual. But whatever the year, the standards of selection in the Noval tasting room are extremely rigorous, and even in the more generous years volumes of our Vintage Ports are always extremely small: at the very most, up to 15% of the production of our great vineyard terroir. In the case of 2020, the selection of 1055 cases of 12 bottles represents 7% of our production.

2020 was a hot and dry year, with a prolonged ripening period throughout the summer that led to an early harvest, as the grapes became fully ripe by early September. The resulting wines are extremely rich and powerful, voluminous, sensual, with great density. Tannic structure is immense, but with remarkable finesse.

The Quinta do Noval Vintage is an unusually powerful and rich style for Quinta do Noval, but nevertheless retains the purity and freshness of Pinhão valley fruit that are typical of Noval wines. As usual, we made a strict selection of the best lots of wine from different parcels throughout the estate, with this year three different lots of wine from the Pinhão Valley and one from the Roncão valley making up the blend.

Harvest was very short, from 1st to 22nd September, which is most unusual for Noval where normally the diversity of varieties, exposures and altitudes results in picking times ranging over a longer period. In 2020 the time to choose the right moment to pick each parcel was very short and the capacity of our three different lagar wineries was used to the full. The resulting wines are pure and aromatic, with remarkable density. We chose to allow slightly higher residual sugars than usual this year, and the result is a harmony and richness that is quite particular to this wonderful year at Quinta do Noval.

Food-Pairing

A delicious digestive, but can also be accompanied by rich old cheeses, dark chocolate or chocolate mousse.

Grapes: Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinto Cão & Sousão

Grapes are trodden by foot to obtain the must, then during fermentation macerate to obtain the best possible extraction in the lagares, the traditional stone vats from the Quinta. It is matured for 18 months in wooden casks in the air conditioned cellars of the Quinta, at the demarcated region of the Douro Valley before bottling.

Alcoholcontent

19,5%

pH: 3,68