Dealing with Change in the Douro

Look closely enough at the fabric of nearly any major wine region around the world and you’ll find the threads of history intertwined with those of innovation and change. In some regions, however, the warp and weft of tradition and modernity are more tangled than they are harmonious.

“The Douro is one of the oldest wine regions in the world when you speak of Port,” says Miguel Roquette of Quinta do Crasto, “but in terms of dry wines, we are perhaps the youngest wine region in the world.”

Officially demarcated as a defined area of wine quality in a process that began in 1754, the Douro was perhaps the third officially demarcated wine region in the world (after Chianti in 1716 and Hungary’s Tokaj region in 1737). It may, however, be the first demarcated and regulated wine region in the world, because in addition to defining its boundaries, the 18th-Century Port laws also regulated how Port wine would be made and established hierarchies of quality within the region’s vineyards.

The story of dry red wine in the Douro is, even today, largely overshadowed by (and in some cases deliberately obscured by) the story of Port. Dry red wine has always been made in some quantity in the region, but has really only been on the global wine industry’s radar for a few decades.

“If you went to a village the Douro in the early 1900s and sat down in a tavern, they would offer you jar of wine that they pulled out of a cask,” says my friend Ryan Opaz, CEO and owner of Catavino Tours, an agency that offers wine tours throughout Portugal. “But these wines, they were light in color and fresh. As a producer, you’d sell the heavy grapes to the Port shippers. With anything left over that wasn’t rich enough for Port, you’d make wine for yourself.”

Occasionally these wines were bottled and sold in the surrounding region, but mostly they were sold as vinho de consumo to a thirsty local market. According to (very complicated) law, for more than 100 years, the only wine that was permitted to leave the Douro and be sold to the rest of the world was Port.

This state of affairs, which gave rise to the all-powerful Port houses, changed dramatically only in 1986 when Portugal officially joined the EU, and European law superseded the ancient codified customs of Port. Suddenly, producers big and small could do what growers everywhere else in the world have done for more than a century: make, bottle, and sell their wines under their own names.

In the 40 years following that change, the Douro has gone through a massive transformation. Many children of prominent winemaking families studied abroad, and then worked harvests around the world, bringing back knowledge of and an interest in the great wines of the world.

The techniques these winemakers learned gave rise to the first generation of Douro table wines that would be sold in any quantity outside of Portugal, and began a new era of Douro winemaking, at least as far as the global wine industry was concerned. Now it’s the children of those winemakers who are continuing the story.

During this same period, the global interest in Port wine seems to have declined significantly, with a drop in sales volume of more than 30% between the year 2000 and today. A focus on higher-priced, higher-quality products has helped keep revenues for Port companies growing slightly, but many growers and producers have dramatically shifted their production away from Port, to the point that commonly 85% to 90% of a given winery’s production will now be dry table wines.

This represents a seismic level of change in a remarkably short time, and one whose aftershocks continue to reverberate through the culture and structure of the Portuguese wine industry.

The Douro is coming to grips with what it now is and what it might become, and not everyone is on the same page, especially those who believe that the region’s traditions of dry table wine should not be solely defined by the wines that rose to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Vast Opportunity

Before I visited the Douro for the first time last autumn, I made sure I knew facts and figures about the region. I was aware that it was… large. But, as I have found many times in my travels over the years, the difference between intellectual understanding and visceral appreciation can be significant.

Twice the size of Bordeaux or Mendoza, seven times bigger than Champagne, the Douro is a very large region (though not as big as Alentejo, which has four times the area overall, and twice as many vineyard acres).

The closest size comparison for American wine might would be the Paso Robles appellation which comes within 4,000 acres of matching the Douro’s 618,000 acre expanse. But unlike Paso Robles, which contains roughly 40,000 acres of vineyard, the Douro hosts 111,000.

What makes the Douro seem so large, not to mention jaw-droppingly beautiful, is the fact that the majority of that acreage is tucked along the steep mountainous sides of the Douro River valley and the various fractal branchings of side valleys that wander off from the main river course.

With an average vineyard slope of 30% and the steepest approaching 70%, the roughly 140,000 different vineyards in the region have been cut, pounded, and quite literally blasted into the soil-scarce hillsides along the river as it winds its way through the slate, shale, schist, and granite rock from the town of Porto on the Atlantic to the Spanish border about 125 miles inland.

As a curious aside, the everyday Portuguese language makes no verbal distinction between slate, shale, and schist. All three are referred to as xisto. This can be a bit befuddling to geology geeks, who think of these three types of metamorphic rocks as extremely different in appearance and quality. Slate is fine-grained, quite hard, and typically fractures (not easily) in clearly defined plates or slivers. Shale is softer than slate, with similar horizontal cleavage planes. Schist is somewhere in between the two in hardness, but with a distinctly granular, crystalline structure that weathers faster in a more crumbly fashion, with less regular cleavage.

It turns out that most (but not all) of what Douro winemakers refer to as schist in conversation is, in fact, various forms of slate and shale. This strange ambiguity of naming aside, the importance of all this stone in the Douro cannot be overstated, both because there’s vastly more of it than actual soil, and because the consistent vertical orientation to its layering (something of a regional anomaly) provides endless fissures through which vine roots can quest for moisture.

All that rock also makes handy building material for the terraces that have historically been used to make the steepest slopes farmable. Stone, of course, also figures prominently in traditional Douro Port winemaking in the form of lagars, the shallow granite basins in which the ripe whole clusters of grapes are foot-trodden by teams of workers and where they receive the extended maceration that makes for Port’s rich, velvety structure.

It’s Not the River, it’s the Mountains

Wine lovers familiar with other famous wine regions nestled into river valleys such as the Mosel or the Loire could be forgiven for thinking that climatologically speaking, the river might play a large role in shaping the overall climate of the region.

But that is far less the case in the Douro than in those other regions, in part because of elevation. The Douro River cuts through terrain that cannot be described as anything other than mountainous. The rocky slopes of the river valley ascend from an elevation of approximately 350 feet at the river’s edge to nearly 2800 feet at the highest points. Planting typically stops at around 2400 feet but has been creeping higher over time.

Elevation (in addition to aspect—the twisty river valleys providing an opportunity to have vineyards facing North, South, East, West, and everywhere in between) has been crucial in helping growers deal with the undeniably harsh climate of the region.

As the favorite local saying goes, “We have nine months of winter and three months of hell.” The winters are cold and wet, and the summers can feel like an inferno, with temperatures climbing well above 100˚F for weeks on end.

The farther east one travels along the river, the more continental the climate becomes, with greater diurnal shifts in temperature and an increasing likelihood of snow in winter.

Historically, the middle (hottest and driest) reaches of the Douro were considered the best winegrowing areas. This is perhaps not a surprise given that great Port requires very, very ripe grapes. But as the region’s focus has shifted to table wines, producers have increasingly looked to higher elevations and more easterly plantings that can offer (slightly) more moderate ripeness curves, as well as the shaded nooks and crannies found in the steep-walled side valleys.

Challenges, Arguments, and Innovation

Much of the region’s development in the early 1990s was thanks to foreign investment and governmental support in the wake of Portugal joining the European Union. But the simultaneous rise of scrappy independent vignerons, millionaire-backed luxury wine brands, and the pivot towards dry wine by the big Port houses has featured many challenges and conflicts along the way.

Nearly everyone I spoke to in the Douro had something to say about labor. Given the nature of the region’s vineyards, mechanization is virtually impossible in most vineyards, especially when it comes to harvest. As recently as 50 or 60 years ago, workers would come from all over Europe to help with the Port harvest in exchange for little more than (and in many cases literally nothing more than) food and housing.

“People used to carry 50 kilos on their backs all the way up hundreds of meters to the warehouse just for a sardine, some wine, and a piece of bread,” says winemaker Miguel Morais of Quinta da Costa do Pinhão.

These days, with rising costs, curbs on immigration, migration from countryside villages to urban centers, and fewer people willing to do backbreaking work of any kind, a labor crisis is brewing in the region.

“Labor is going to be our biggest problem and the most important influence on the potential quality of the wines,” says winemaker Luis Seabra. “We used to have a lot of people living here in the Douro, and it was easy to find people to do the work. Not anymore. People don’t want a job for just 4 or 5 months each year, they need to work all the time, and so we have to go find people in Nepal.”

Some successful companies have seen the writing on the wall and moved to hire full-time employees, but even these organizations still struggle to have enough skilled hands at harvest.

“Part of the problem is that we’re not investing in infrastructure and community,” says Opaz, who has very strong feelings about this subject. “Of course no one wants to live in these villages when we have no [local] health clinics, the schools are bad, and there’s no movie theater for kids to go to on the weekends. The only investments the industry seems to want to make are in vineyards and hotels.”

The speed at which the labor crisis will unfold has been curbed somewhat by the legal limits that authorities have placed on vineyard expansion in the region. Production caps for the entire Douro effectively mean that almost any new planting can only occur simultaneously with removing an existing productive vineyard.

The growth in the region then has not been in the form of new vineyards, as much as it has been with new producers taking over old vineyards, or using vineyards whose grapes used to be sold to larger companies to launch new brands.

As you’d expect, some of these upstart projects created by a younger generation aren’t exactly sticking to the script. Pét-nats, natural wines, glou-glou low-alcohol wines, skin-macerated orange wines, and more are popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm.

Some members of the (now) old guard behind the rise of Douro table wines aren’t so happy about these projects. I won’t be quoting them directly out of politeness, but more than one storied producer basically uttered some version of, “The wines these kids are making, they are not Douro wines.”

First of all, it’s ridiculous to think that Douro wine is one thing and that one thing is immutable. Some older producers even leveled criticism at young winemakers who are (gasp) not removing the white grapes from their field blends before they ferment them, resulting in lighter-colored, lower-alcohol wines that don’t have the density and power of what these producers would call a “traditional” Douro red.

Don’t make me laugh. This kind of winemaking is precisely what their grandfathers and great-grandfathers were doing. That’s why those 150-year-old vineyards have white grapes in them to begin with.

When your dominant wine style is effectively 30 years old in its newest incarnation, no one has a monopoly on “tradition.” One could easily argue that by seeking out these old, high-elevation field blends, fermenting them in toto with lagars and aging in neutral oak, young winemakers are providing a much more traditional taste of what the Douro has to offer than a 14.7% Touriga-Nacional-dominated blockbuster aged for 18 months in expensive French barrels.

Our biology primes us to be naturally fearful of change. Yet all innovation is change. All progress is change. All learning is change. The Douro is doing a lot of changing, and people need to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

The Douro is undeniably one of the world’s great wine regions: visually spectacular; full of old-vine vineyards with unique indigenous grapes; blessed with dozens of outstanding wine producers making world-class wines; steeped in a rich culinary heritage with access to incredible raw ingredients; at a reasonable train ride from one of Europe’s most picturesque cities.

It is also a region in the process of incredibly rapid evolution, but an evolution that is both necessary and largely for the good. If the Douro wants to be relevant on the global wine scene, it has to evolve. It can do so without losing touch with its past. In fact, many of its challenges might be met by looking to its past, just farther back than the early 1990s.

Many paths lead into the future.

Here are the stories and wines of 10 different producers who each showcase a different facet of the journey towards what the Douro is becoming.

Luis Seabra: Chasing a New Perfection

It’s usually never a good idea to use superlatives when writing about wine, not only because most writers rarely have the truly comprehensive knowledge required to credibly say something is “the best” but also because the world of wine is not fixed and static. Every vintage brings change.

That having been said, the first time I encountered Luis Seabra‘s wines, I was immediately struck with the notion that they were the best dry wines from the Douro I had ever tasted. My first encounter with his wines was strolling around the Vinhos e Sabor wine fair in Lisbon more than a decade ago. I wandered up to a small stand with just a couple of wines on display, which turned out to be the winemaker’s first vintage. My reaction, after putting the first sip in my mouth, was, “Holy sh*t this is good. Who the hell are you?”

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was tasting the beginning of a second modern revolution in the Douro. And the man responsible for the second revolution had a strong role to play in the first.

Seabra’s career began with doing soil science as a viticulturalist for one of Vinho Verde’s largest cooperatives, but he eventually found his way back to the Douro, from where his father’s family hails, and landed a job at Niepoort, where he convinced that most traditional of Port families to being making table wines from their old vineyards in the region.

Those first wines along with others made by a select group of producers, would eventually cause their makers to become known as the Douro Boys, and would chart an entirely new modern path for wine in the Douro Valley, changing everyone’s understanding of what was possible in the region.

By 2013, however, Seabra believed he had not come anywhere close to achieving what was possible in the Douro and struck out on his own.

“The biggest problem with wine producers is a philosophical one. They don’t know what they want,” says Seabra. “People instead have a certain… look they are going for. They have a recipe. They follow the recipe, and they don’t follow the vineyard. If you are going to have a winemaking philosophy, the only one that makes sense to me is a philosophy that is specific to each place you farm.”

Ten years later, he feels like he is getting closer, but believes there’s still so much more to do in terms of farming quality. Seabra doesn’t own any of his own vineyards, and while he has nudged farmers in the direction he wants them to go, the farming is still not what he considers ideal.

That is why you never see a vineyard name on a Luis Seabra wine label, and won’t until he owns the vineyard and it is farmed the way he thinks it should be farmed.

Until then, the 51-year-old Seabra is going to keep on making some of the most nerve-tingling, stone-singing wines to come out of the Douro Valley.

2022 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Xisto Ilimitado” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Light gold in the glass, this wine smells of citrus pith, apples, Asian pear, and white flowers. In the mouth, salty flavors of grapefruit, Asian pear, yellow herbs, and lemon oil mix with a hint of white flowers. There’s a faint chalky, mineral grip, and wonderful salinity here. The wine goes through full malolactic conversion. 12.5% alcohol. 60,000 bottles made. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $31. click to buy.

2021 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Granito Cru” Branco, Dão, Portugal
Light gold in the glass, this wine smells of white flowers and pears. In the mouth, pears and white flowers mix with lemon pith and a salty wonderful wet chalkboard quality. Juicy and bright with a light chalky texture. Honestly mouthwatering. A field blend of Bicao, Cercial, Encruzado. Goes through full malolactic conversion. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $75. click to buy.

2021 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Granito Cru” Alvarinho, Vinho Regional Minho, Portugal
Light yellow gold in the glass, this wine smells of candied lemon peel, orange peel, and lemon oil. In the mouth, deep crushed stone flavors mix with lemon oil and lemon pith. A hint of Buddha’s Hand citrus lingers in the finish. Excellent acidity with a light chalky grip. This wine is entirely dry but there’s this wonderful aromatic sweetness that emerges in the finish. Fermented in foudres of different sizes, no sulfur added, full malolactic conversion. This wine would ordinarily be classified as Vinho Verde, but the paperwork was not done on time, so it had to be classified as Vinho Regional. 12% alcohol. 11,280 bottles made. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $67. click to buy.

2021 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Xisto Cru” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale yellow-gold in the glass, this wine smells of lemon blossoms, wet chalkboard, lemon pith, and grapefruit oil. In the mouth, gorgeously saline flavors of white flowers, citrus pith, and crushed stones have a crystalline quality and a tiny hint of fior di latte that lingers with the lemon zest in the finish. Gorgeous. A blend of 70% Rabigato and perhaps 10% Cordoga, 10% Gouveio, and then various unknown varieties. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $85. click to buy.

2021 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Xisto Ilimitado” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of faintly salty, faintly smoky berries and dried flowers. In the mouth, salty and bright berry, blood orange, and dried flower flavors are wrapped in a fleecy, fine-grained wrap of tannins. Sour cherry and blueberry notes linger in the finish with a hint of citrus. Fresh, stony, and bright with fantastic acidity. A mix of vineyards on both sides of the Douro featuring blue slate and yellow slate soils. 12.5% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $30. click to buy.

2021 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Mono C” Castellão, Douro, Portugal
Light to medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of flowers and boysenberries. In the mouth, lightly fleecy tannins wrap around a core of bright berries with a smoky note. Stony and juicy. Hints of dried herbs and citrus peel linger in a long finish. Fun fact: Castellão has long been an authorized grape variety in the Douro. Luis Seabra made the first single varietal bottling of the grape in Portugal’s modern wine history, and it was rejected by the regional authority for being “not characteristic of the region”. 13% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $72. click to buy.

2021 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Mono A” Alfrochiero, Dão, Portugal
Light to medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of bergamot and dried flowers, tea, and berries. In the mouth, wonderfully salty and juicy boysenberry and plum flavors mix with plum skin and dried herbs. Wonderfully fleecy tannins wrap around the juicy, stony core of fruit. Notes of aromatic herbs linger in the finish. Fantastic acidity. 100% whole cluster fermentation. Outstanding. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $72. click to buy.

2021 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Indie Xisto” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of dried herbs, berries, and earth. In the mouth, tight muscular tannins wrap around a core of boysenberries, juicy with bright acidity, and shot through with white tea and dried herbs. Hints of herbs and citrus peel linger in the stony finish. Fantastically delicious. A blend of around 20-30% Tinta Roriz, a bit of Touriga Franca, Tinta Barocca, plus “a bit of this a bit of that.” From a roughly 70-year-old vineyard. Fermented in concrete, then aged in a combination of large format oak and demi-muids. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $74. click to buy.

2021 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Xisto Cru” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark purple in the glass, this wine smells of dried flowers and wet chalkboard with forest berries floating on a breeze. In the mouth, salty berries, dried flowers, and herbs are mouthwateringly bright and wrapped in a muscular fist of fine-grained tannins. Stony, bright, and delicious. Comes from two 100-year-old vineyards, Marmalero and Pejona, each around .8 hectares. Fermented in large upright oak vats with a long maceration of up to 2 months. Aged in old barriques from Domaine Leroy in Burgundy. 12% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $86. click to buy.

2014 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Granito Cru” Vinho Verde, Portugal
Medium gold in the glass with amber highlights, this wine smells of marmalade and honey. In the mouth, deeply mineral flavors of wet stone and marmalade mix with crushed stone and orange peel. Moving towards savory in quality with hints of parchment. It was a cold year, with lots of rot. Luis thinks this is his least successful wine, and one that will age the poorest, but opened it for the sake of curiosity. Still alive for sure, and pleasurable, but we should consider curiosity sated at this point. 100% Alvarinho. 12% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $n/a

2015 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Granito Cru” Vinho Verde, Portugal
Light to medium gold in the glass, this wine smells of candle wax, marzipan, and citrus marmalade. In the mouth, deliciously salty flavors of dried lemon peel, orange blossom, and crushed stones have a lovely deep minerality and filigreed acidity. Long, intense, and aging beautifully. 12% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $n/a.

2014 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Xisto Cru” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells incredibly youthful for its age, with aromas of white flowers, citrus pith, and deeply stony wet chalkboard wafting out of the glass. In the mouth, lemon pith swirls electrically with liquid stone, white flowers, and more exotic citrus notes in a gorgeous crystalline matrix of shimmering light and vibrating saline energy. Positively stunning. A blend of 70% Rabigato and perhaps 10% Cordoga, 10% Gouveio, and then various unknown varieties. 12.5% alcohol. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $n/a

2014 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Indie Xisto” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of dried herbs, dried flowers, berries, and spices. In the mouth, flavors of thyme, other herbs, and dried flowers layer over a foundation of sour cherries and raspberries. Electrically bright acidity features notes of orange peel and a hint of salinity rounds out a mouthwatering package that is aging beautifully. A blend of around 20-30% Tinta Roriz, a bit of Touriga Franca, Tinta Barocca, plus “a bit of this a bit of that.” From a roughly 70-year-old vineyard. Fermented in concrete, then aged in a combination of large format oak and demi-muids. 13.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $n/a.

2013 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Xisto Cru” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of truffles, earth, and herbs layered over dried berries. In the mouth, early flavors are wrapped in fleecy tannins. The wine has evolved to feature savory notes of dried herbs, berries and a hint of woody bitterness. Good acidity, but things seem like they’re tiring out. Comes from two 100-year-old vineyards, Marmalero and Pejona, each around .8 hectares. Fermented in large upright oak vats with a long maceration of up to 2 months. Aged in old barriques. This is the first vintage Seabra made of this wine. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $n/a.

2015 Luis Seabra Vinhos “Véu de Xisto” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale blonde in the glass, this wine smells of crushed nuts, vanilla, and dried citrus peel. In the mouth, electric acidity enlivens saline flavors of citrus blossom, pomelo pith, and crushed stones. Deeply stony and even crystalline in quality, with a crackling enervated quality that lingers for a long time in the mouth. Astonishing, and unfortunately, possibly never to be repeated. This wine was a pure accident, the result of Seabra aging a portion of his Xisto Cru white wine blend in two used 300L casks he got from the Jura. It turns out that rather than just being ordinary white wine barrels, they were vin jaune barrels, and they contained living flor yeasts. When Seabra noticed the yeast film forming over the wine, he put the two barrels in the corner and ordered his team not to touch them “under penalty of death.” “Everyone thought I had lost my mind,” says Seabra, laughing. They were left to age under flor for 3 years before they were racked to stainless steel for 2 more years of aging before bottling. Only 800 bottles were made, and only a handful remain, as Seabra and his friends drank most of them. A truly astonishing and unique accidental wine. Score: a perfect 10. Cost: $n/a.

Maçanita Vinhos: Sibling Synergy

Maçanita is perhaps one of the best-known known names in Portuguese wine. António Maçanita, who seemed to burst onto the Portuguese wine scene in 2004, is something of a wunderkind, having been named “Winemaker of the Year,” “Most Unique Winemaker,” and “Winemaker of the Generation” by various publications inside and outside of Portugal after only a decade of making wine. He is highly sought-after as a consultant, and some of his estates, in particular Fitapreta Vinhos in Alentejo and the Azores Wine Company are among the most lauded wine projects in the country, as well as being darlings of the international wine cognoscenti.

Maçanita Vinhos is António’s “home project,” but really, it represents the work of the other winemaking talent in the family, António’s sister Joana.

“My brother got the class codes wrong in university and ended up in a wine class by mistake,” says Joana with a laugh. “Eventually he ended up with three consulting clients while he was trying to make his own wine and he called me like he always does when he has a problem.”

Joana, a trained and accomplished winemaker in her own right, manages the tiny family domain with the help of a couple of employees, and sees her brother only rarely, as he flies around the country to his various wine projects.

The estate consists of 5 hectares (12.35 acres) of mostly old field blends in several areas of the Douro Valley, all in the process of organic conversion. The wines are made with a low-intervention philosophy, with only temperature control of the fermentation as the sole nod to modernity.

Historically, the major Port producers in the region assigned letter grades to vineyards, A through F, best to worst. The A-grade sites could command significant premiums for their grapes, and those producers made enough money that they could easily replant their vineyards. Wineries with F-grade grapes made barely enough to get by, and as a result, many of the oldest surviving vineyards in the valley are grade F, or, as Maçanita proudly proclaims on their labels “Letra F.”

The Maçanita family wines are distinctive and characterful, displaying a remarkable expression of place, to the point of smelling and tasting like the native herbs found throughout the Douro.

Maçanita, like Seabra, offers a new interpretation and a different philosophy when it comes to Portugese wine, one rooted in history, but not bound by tradition. Maçanita has helped demonstrate a new path forward in the world of Douro wine (and also Portuguese wine) that has inspired the youngest generation of winemakers to be bold and take risks but not forget where they come from.

2022 Maçanita Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of dried herbs and citrus pith, with a hint of wet wool. In the mouth, citrus pith and dried herbs mix with stony wet pavement flavors. Pithy, but slightly austere. A blend of 70% Viosinho, 20% Arinto, and 10% Gouveio. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $31. click to buy.

2022 Maçanita Gouveio, Douro, Portugal
Pale straw in color, this wine smells of wet dog, citrus pith, and grapefruit. In the mouth, grapefruit and a hint of greengage plum mix with dried herbs and a touch of vanilla and pastry cream. Excellent acidity. 12.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $21. click to buy.

2022 Maçanita Folgasão, Douro, Portugal
Palest straw, nearly colorless in the glass, this wine smells of star fruit and wet pavement. In the mouth, very stony star fruit, winter melon, and citrus pith flavors have great acidity. This is the only single-variety bottling of this grape in the world. 12% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $20. click to buy.

2022 Maçanita Malvasia Fina, Douro, Portugal
Pale yellow-gold in the glass, this wine smells of grapefruit and a hint of wet wool. In the mouth, bright lemony grapefruit flavors mix with wet pavement and yellow plum. Lovely citrus oil and dried herb notes linger in the finish. Excellent acidity. Fermented in a combination of steel tank and old oak, with no sulfur additions or topping-up, allowing the wine to get lots of oxygen contact. 13% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $30.

2021 Maçanita “Letra F – os caniveis” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale yellow-gold in the glass, this wine smells of honey and white flowers. In the mouth, bright citrus and yellow plum mix with grapefruit pith and dried herbs. Excellent acidity and nice minerality. Comes from a 1.55 ha vineyard at 520 meters of altitude that is worked by horse. Vines are an average of 70 years old and are a mix of 17 varieties, including Carriega Branco, Syria, Rabigato, Malvasia, Gouveio, and Folgesao. 12% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $21. click to buy.

2021 Maçanita “Letra F – Vale de Barca” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of citrus pith and yellow herbs. In the mouth, a crystalline quality and a lovely salinity mix with wet chalkboard as flavors of lemon oil vibrate across the palate with excellent acidity and a chalky texture. Fermented and aged in one old oak barrel. Comes from .41 ha of 140-year-old vines worked by horse. 12% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $??

2021 Maçanita Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass this wine smells of huckleberries, blueberries, and flowers. In the mouth, juicy and crunchy plum, boysenberry, and floral flavors are wrapped in faint grippy tannins. A hint of green herbs adds a grace note of bitterness to the finish. Excellent acidity. Grape varieties are “a traditional Douro red blend.” 13.5% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $31. click to buy.

2021 Maçanita “Letra F” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Light to medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of strawberries and plum mixed with wet stone. In the mouth, bright berry and cherry flavors mix with herbs and flowers. Crunchy and stony, with faint tannins and fantastic acidity. A 100-year-old field blend of 42 different grape varieties of which 10% are white. Fermented in open-top fermenters, then steel tanks. 5000 bottles made. 13% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $44. click to buy.

2021 Maçanita “Letra A” Touriga Nacional, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black tea, black cherry, and flowers. In the mouth, fleecy tannins wrap around a core of blackberry, boysenberry, and black tea. Stony minerality lingers despite the rich, ripe fruit. 15% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $40.

2020 Maçanita “Letra F – as Olgas” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of boysenberry, black cherry, balsamic, and strawberry with a hint of lavender. In the mouth, beautifully bright strawberry fruit is wrapped in stony tannins, as flavors of dried herbs and dried flowers linger in the finish along with juicy acidity. A field blend of 13 different grape varieties between 90 and 100 years old grown at 480 meters of elevation. Contains 26% Tinta Aguillar, 6% Cournifesto, 5% Cashcoiu, plus small amounts of Grand Noir, Touriga Franca, Tinta Carvalla, Tinta Roriz. Aged in old barrels. 13% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $62. click to buy.

2021 Maçanita “e Sousão ou Sera Vinhão” Sousão, Douro, Portugal
Dark purple in the glass, this wine smells of mulberry and citrus peel. In the mouth, rich boysenberry and orange peel flavors mix with cassis as faint tannins buff the mouth. Excellent acidity, and a touch of sour cherry lingering in the finish. Aged in 100% new French oak for 14 months. Grown at 270 meters of elevation. 13% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $35.

Mateus Nicolau de Almeida: Douro’s Radical Underground

“Too much technology can make wine all taste the same,” says Teresa Ameztoy, “but not enough technology can do the same thing.”

Ameztoy is the co-owner and co-winemaker with her husband Mateus at the eponymous Mateus Nicolau de Almeida winery. Together they make an eclectic array of wines in a remarkable subterranean cellar excavated out of the solid rock of their Upper Douro or Douro Superior region. Their tasting room is an atmospheric, ancient dovecote with an orrery made from old barrel hoops hanging in the towering space above a natural stone table. Instead of housing pigeons, the hundreds of cubbies in the wall are now filled with wines.

Ameztoy and Nicolau de Almeida’s approach to wine is incredibly thoughtful, and squarely in the realm of what is generally referred to as natural wine (no temperature control, native yeasts, etc). That is not a label or a movement with which the couple strongly identifies, but let’s just say they are quite comfortable speaking of the telluric value of making wine in a space enclosed by the same stone into which their vines plunge their roots.

From their little winery they produce three different lines of wines, each with a clearly-defined and strategic purpose. Their three Trans Douro Express wines are traditional regional blends grown in each of the three sections of the Douro (Baixo Corgo, Cima Corgo, and Douro Superior). They are meant to be accessible, reasonably priced expressions of the place.

Their Eremitas wines are an expression of individual vineyard sites through the lens of a single grape, Rabigato. The production regimen for each of the three bottlings is kept as similar as possible to make the sole differences between the wines their particular vineyard expression.

And their Curral Teles wines are what Mateus calls “hand of the winemaker” wines that experiment with different approaches to vinification, including most radically, a 3-year maceration in a custom-made fermentation vessel carved out of solid granite that rotates with a handle crank.

They’re also busy (slowly) making a new fermentation tank carved directly into a stone outcrop near the winery.

The wines of Mateus Nicolau de Almeida represent the Douro seen through a new lens, one that would be familiar to attendees of the Raw Wine fair or the natural wine bars drawing young crowds in cities around the globe. The wines however have a cleanliness that keeps them squarely in the enjoyable zone for me, and I appreciate the spirit and personality with which Ameztoy and her husband are expressing their interpretation of the Douro.

2020 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Trans Douro Express – Baixo Corgo” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of boysenberries, black cherries, and flowers. In the mouth, powdery, muscular tannins drape flavors of black cherry and plum shot through with black tea and dried herbs. Excellent acidity and freshness. A field blend of traditional Douro varieties. Crushed and destemmed into concrete tanks and then fermented with wild yeasts. Short maceration pulled off in the middle of the fermentation to let the wine finish fermenting without the skins. 13.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $18. click to buy.

2020 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Trans Douro Express – Cima Corgo” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of dried flowers, black tea, and dark berries. In the mouth, stony tannins flex their muscles as flavors of boysenberry and black cherry mix with black tea and dried flowers. Stony and tighter than the Baixa Corgo bottling. A field blend of traditional Douro varieties. Wild yeasts. Crushed and destemmed into concrete tanks. Short maceration pulled off in the middle of the fermentation. 13.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $18. click to buy.

2020 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Trans Douro Express – Douro Superior” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black tea and earth and dark berries. In the mouth, black tea, dusty roads, and chalk dust coat a dark core of fruit. Muscular fine-grained tannins, increase their pressure on the palate. Good acidity. A field blend of traditional Douro varieties. Crushed and destemmed into concrete tanks and then fermented with wild yeasts. Short maceration pulled off in the middle of the fermentation to let the wine finish fermenting without the skins. 13.5% alcohol. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $??

2022 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Eremitas – Amon de Kelia” Rabigato, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of citrus pith and yellow herbs. In the mouth, honeyed flavors of citrus peel and wet chalkboard mix with a touch of yellow herbs. Lightly chalky texture, softer acidity. Honeyed, but dry. This is the highest parcel with more quartz in the soil. 12% alcohol. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $30.

2020 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Eremitas – Antão do Deserta” Rabigato, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of flinty lemon oil and wet stone. In the mouth, wet stone and lemon pith mix with lemon oil and white tea. Faint chalky texture. Delicate, filigreed acidity. Quite interesting. 12% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $??

2019 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Eremitas – Paulo de Tebas” Rabigato, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass with a hint of bronze, this wine smells of candle wax and candied lemon, wet chalkboard, and almond flesh. In the mouth, stony flavors of wet chalkboard, lemon pith, and dried yellow herbs have a chalky texture and very mineral aspect. Good acidity.13.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $35.

NV Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Curral Teles – Alpha” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Light to medium ruby in the glass, this wine smells of strawberries and flowers. In the mouth, bright strawberries and a hint of caramel mix with flowers and nice bright acidity. Bright and juicy. A blend of the 2020 and 2021 vintages, crushed in a stone basin and then kept for three hours in contact with skins. A field blend of mostly Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, and Touriga Franca. “People like to talk about a ‘traditional’ Douro wine, but this is probably close to what people used to drink before Port was invented,” says the winemaker. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $41. click to buy.

2021 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Curral Teles – Zeta” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Light ruby in the glass with faint orange highlights, this wine smells of orange peel, dried herbs, and earth. In the mouth, surprisingly muscular tannins wrap around a core of bright cherry and sour cherry fruit shot through with green herbs. Great acidity and stony minerality. Crunchy and bright. Very interesting. From the high Meda area, there is an old vineyard of 100-year-old bush vines with dozens of grape varieties, roughly 50% white and 50% red vinified together. 13.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $40.

2021 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Curral Teles – Mu” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark ruby in the glass, this wine smells of black tea, the local herb known as esteva, licorice, and carob. In the mouth, thick muscular tannins wrap around a stony and slightly lean berry core. Dark and impenetrable. Long macerated full berries from Cima Corgo, a field blend with a lot of Tina Barroca, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, and Tinta Cao. Full berries stay in contact with the wine for 18 months in an old oak barrel and are only pressed just before bottling. 13% alcohol. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $40.

2019 Mateus Nicolau de Almeida + Gorvel “DWR” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of dark cherry, boysenberry, licorice, and dried herbs. In the mouth, there’s a very interesting back-of-the-throat lingering herbal flavor that mixes with dark fruit and very muscular but supple tannins. Long-macerated, full berries from Cima Corgo, a 90-year-old field blend with a lot of Tinta Barroca, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, and Tinta Cao. Full berries stay in contact with the wine for 18 months in the rotating stone tank and are only pressed just before bottling. 13% alcohol. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $??

NV Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Ruby Seco” Port, Porto, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of caramel, dark blueberry, and black cherry. In the mouth, black cherry and blueberry flavors have a light sweetness that fades to a dry powdery tannic texture with long soaring flavors of dark fruit. 18.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $??

NV Mateus Nicolau de Almeida “Lagrima” White Port, Porto, Portugal
Light gold in the glass, this wine smells of white flowers, melon, and honey. In the mouth, floral flavors of melon, honey, and wet stone have a nice acidity that keeps this very sweet wine from tasting too sweet. 18.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $??

Quinta da Costa do Pinhão: Next-Generation Winemakers

Miguel Morais is a sixth-generation grape farmer, but had no intention of being a farmer at all. Trained as a civil engineer, Morais was yanked back into the historical family business when his grandfather died suddenly and his mother decided she didn’t want to take care of the family properties. All of a sudden, Morais found himself the caretaker of 17 hectares of prime Douro vineyard land under the name Quinta da Costa do Pinhão.

For a few years, all Morais could do was arrange for the sale of the grapes, but the more time he spent on the property, the more interested he got in wine. “We started doing small experiments,” he says, “and then in 2014 we decided to refurbish the old cellar and really begin our own project.”

Morais decided early on that he wanted to be an organic estate, and used his last drop of herbicide in 2019. The fact that his steep, 50-year-old vineyards are surrounded by woods on almost all sides, means “we’re sort of protected from our neighbors’ mistakes,” says Morais. His terraced property sits in a valley carved by the Pinhão River, with vineyards extending from around 200 meters (650 feet) of elevation up to 800 meters (2600), all planted in decomposed schist soil riddled with veins of quartz.

In addition to organic viticulture, Morais decided he wanted to make wines that both celebrate the heritage of the region while at the same time demonstrate an alternative to the big, heavy, rich table wines that launched the Douro table wine revolution. For help, he turned to his acquaintance Luis Seabra who helped to shape his winemaking regimen for what he wanted to achieve. Morais uses only ambient yeasts for fermentations, some portion of whole clusters, and a combination of concrete tanks and the rather uncommon slate (instead of granite) lagars that were installed in the old family winery.

“We’re not trying to deny that this is a warm climate zone,” says Morais, “we’re just trying to get some more elegance and subtlety.” The wines brilliantly demonstrate the fruits of this philosophy. In 2014, Morais was one of the first producers in the valley to make a skin-contact white wine, which he thinks of as a natural extension of traditional Port-style winemaking (i.e. extended maceration), just with white grapes.

Quinta da Costa do Pinhão represents an interesting transition in the evolution of the Douro, a new generation of winemaking philosophy absent the baggage of ingrained tradition, but deeply devoted to expressing and elevating the unique qualities of the region. In short, Quinta da Costa do Pinhão might be the prototypical example of what a viable future of the Douro could look like, as great historical vineyard sites are expressed with contemporary values and a rigorous approach to quality.

2020 Quinta da Costa do Pinhão Branco, Douro, Portugal
Light amber-orange in the glass, this wine smells of apricots and Asian pear with hints of candied orange peel. In the mouth, wonderful bright acidity makes flavors of orange peel, dried apricot, citrus pith, and hints of dried herbs crystalline and zippy with a faint tannic grip. Grown at 450 to 500 meters of elevation in fractured slate. A blend of 15 different varieties, dominated by Gouveio, Rabigato, and Viosinho. 13.5% alcohol. 2000 bottles made. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $35. click to buy.

2022 Quinta da Costa do Pinhão “The Somm” Rosé, Douro, Portugal
Pale ruby in the glass, this wine smells of manzanita berries and orange peel. In the mouth, wonderfully saline flavors mix with berries and citrus peel. Crystalline acidity and herbal aromatics linger in the finish. Outstanding. A blend of Touriga Nacional and Touriga Francisca, slow pressed in a basket press. Settled for 24 hours and fermented in barrels. 12.5% alcohol. 667 bottles made (one barrel). Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $??

2022 Quinta da Costa do Pinhão “Marufo” Mourisco Marufo, Douro, Portugal
Light ruby in the glass, this wine smells of strawberries and green herbs. In the mouth, herbal and slightly rustic berry flavors mix with faintly salty citrus notes and fleecy tannins. Earthy finish. Decent acidity. Mourisco Marufo is variety found everywhere in the Douro but common wisdom is that it isn’t worth harvesting. 100% whole cluster. 12.5% alcohol. Took three years to approve as a Douro DOC wine. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $??

2020 Quinta da Costa do Pinhão “Gradual” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of herbs, dried flowers, wet pavement, ripe strawberries, and a hint of struck match. In the mouth, faintly salty flavors of dark berries and black cherries are stony and deeply mineral in quality, with chalky, powdery tannins. Dried herbs linger in the finish with a hint of sour cherry. Excellent acidity and freshness. 12.5% alcohol. A blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, and Tinta Roriz foot tread in lagars. 13.5% alcohol. 3923 bottles made. Score: around 9. Cost: $20.

2018 Quinta da Costa do Pinhão Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass with some ruby creeping into the rim, this wine has an amazing floral aroma with cedar and dried herbs mixed with dark cherry fruit. In the mouth, fleecy tannins wrap around a core of black cherry, cedar, and dried herbs. Bright acidity. 40-45 year old vines grown at 300 to 450 meters of elevation. A blend of Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, and Touriga Nacional fermented in stainless steel and aged for 18 months in old oak barrels. 13.5% alcohol. 4000 bottles made. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $28.

2019 Quinta da Costa do Pinhão Tinto Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of dried flowers, a hint of smoked meat, and dark red fruits. In the mouth, fleecy, thick tannins wrap around a core of salty black cherry and dried herbs and flowers shot through with dried orange peel. Very stony, with deep mineral tones and excellent acidity. This vintage was around 75% Tinta Roriz, which was atypically fermented separately from the Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca. Not yet released. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $28.

2018 Quinta da Costa do Pinhão “Peladosa” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark ruby in the glass, this wine smells of gorgeously floral dark berries and herbs with a hint of sweet mushrooms. In the mouth, wonderfully juicy citrus peel and sour cherry flavors are wrapped in fleecy tannins. Crunchy acidity and wonderful red fruit round out an alluring package. Stony, juicy. Deep and resonant. Made from 100+ year-old vines with around 35 different grape varieties, pretty much all of them red. Some are bush vines, on schist terraces. 100% whole bunch, infused with no pumpovers or extraction, only keeping the cap wet until fermentation is finished. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $53. click to buy.

2014 Quinta da Costa do Pinhão “Peladosa” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark ruby in the glass, this wine smells of dried flowers, cedar, aromatic herbs, and berries. In the mouth, beautifully stony and salty red berries, herbs, and flowers have a faint cedary quality and fine powdery supple tannins that coat the mouth and are faintly drying. Exquisite acidity and depth. Made from 100+ year-old vines with around 35 different grape varieties, pretty much all of them red. Some are bush vines, on schist terraces. 100% whole bunch, infused with no pumpovers or extraction, only keeping the cap wet until fermentation is finished. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $40.

Wine & Soul: Pioneers of an Evolving Style

Winemaker Jorge Serôdio Borges was working for Niepoort in the early 2000s along with Luis Seabra. At that time his wife Sandra Tavares de Silva, also a winemaker, was working as one of the Douro’s first female winemakers at Quinta do Vale D. Maria. Together the two decided to start their own tiny wine company in 2001 that they named Wine & Soul. Neither had access to family vineyards, so they pooled their savings and bought an old, and rather neglected 2-hectare (4.5-acre) vineyard named Pintas, full of 70+ year-old vines of more than 40 different grape varieties.

“We were both very happy with our jobs,” says Borges. “This wasn’t supposed to be a big venture, just something small for us to do for ourselves. We had no kids at the time,” he adds with a knowing raise of his eyebrow. “But business brings more business, and things started to grow.”

The couple’s first dry red wine from Pintas was one of the earliest examples of modern dry table wines from the Douro, and it attracted a lot of attention.

“We were a young couple at the time, without money, without anything, so we decided to just invest everything we made back in the business,” says Borges. They started buying other small vineyards, which they blended into several different wines (opting to keep Pintas an expression of a singular site).

Eventually, Borges would purchase his family’s historic Quinta da Manoella property with 60 hectares surrounding a core of century-old vines. This property would become the source for their second runaway success of a wine, and the foundation for growth of the Wine & Soul portfolio of wines.

Somewhat confusingly, this portfolio consists of many different names, none of which are Wine & Soul, which is simply the name under which Borges and Tavares do business. Pintas remains its own brand and individual wine, however, a Pintas “Character” wine is now made with some of the younger vines from that plot. The Quinta da Manoella property produces an individual single-vineyard wine from the old vines called Quinta da Manoella, but there also exists a line of wines called simply “Manoella” that come from the estate, but from younger vines. A single wine named Vinha do Altar comes from a high-elevation plot in the Fermentões region of the Cima Corgo, while the Guru line of wines comes from a different, higher-elevation vineyard, with that plot’s oldest vines going into the Guru Vinha da Calçada bottling.

I find all the different names and branding frustratingly confusing, but thankfully the wines more than make up for that with their excellence. Both because of their vineyard sites, which feature higher elevations, lots of trees, and some cooler northerly exposures, as well as Borges’ and Tavares’ winemaking and farming styles, most of their wines are brimming with energy and alluring tension. They tend to be slightly lower in alcohol, higher in acidity, and not heavily extracted. There’s a freshness to even the richest, old-vine red field blends, especially in the moderate 2021 vintage, that brings an incredible elegance to these wines, aided, no doubt, by the very modest influence of wood throughout the portfolio.

The careers of Borges and Tavares have paralleled the transformation of the Douro and the shift towards dry table wines and away from Port (which the two still produce under the Manoella name). Rather than being hidebound to tradition and older ways of thinking, however, this power couple has continued to push themselves and their wines for excellence. They won’t be making pet-nats or skin-macerated wines anytime soon, I wouldn’t think, but they are leaders nonetheless in pointing towards where the Douro can go with its winemaking.

2022 Vinha do Altar (Wine & Soul) “Reserva” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale greenish gold in the glass, this wine smells of Asian pear and melon with hints of wet chalkboard. In the mouth, floral Asian pear, green apple, and melon flavors have a bright crispness with a light chalky quality and a faint salinity. Crisp, juicy, and bright with excellent acidity. Mostly Gouveio, Viosinho, and Arinto grown at 600 meters of elevation in schist soils. Whole-cluster pressed to stainless steel where it ferments with selected yeasts. Malolactic conversion blocked. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $20.

2022 Guru (Wine & Soul) Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of white flowers, wet chalkboard, a hint of Asian pear, and melon. In the mouth, lemon pith, Asian pear, and a hint of vanilla mix with white flowers and a lovely wet pavement minerality. Excellent acidity and depth with a smoky flinty note on the finish. A field blend of 60+ year-old Viosinho, Rabigato, Codiga, and Gouveio grown in schist and granite soils. Fermented in 9% new French oak, with malo inhibited, and then aged for 7 months before bottling. 12.5% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $45. click to buy.

2020 Guru (Wine & Soul) “Vinha da Calçada” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale yellow-gold in the glass, this wine smells of lemon blossom, pastry cream, wet chalkboard, and lemon pith. In the mouth, salty, crystalline lemon and grapefruit flavors have a bright mouthwatering quality with a hint of flintiness in the finish. Fantastic acidity, stunning vibrancy, and presence. A .5 hectare field blend of 100+ year-old Gouveio, Rabigato, Codiga, and Viosinho with a lot of other obscure varieties grown in more granite than schist. The plot was purchased in 2019 and the winery’s first harvest was in 2020. Fermented in neutral foudre without toast, and aged for 18 months. 1600 bottles made. Calçada refers to an old Roman road. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $100.

2022 Manoella (Wine & Soul) Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of lemon pith, white flowers, and wet stone. In the mouth, gorgeously crisp and mineral flavors of lemon pith and grapefruit have a briskness thanks to excellent acidity and powdery stone minerality. Faint chalky grip and light salinity. Really beautiful. A blend of Viosinho, Rabigato, and Codiga grown at 550 meters of elevation, whole-cluster pressed and fermented in stainless with malo blocked. 12.5% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $30. click to buy.

2022 Manoella (Wine & Soul) Rosé of Touriga Nacional, Douro, Portugal
Palest peachy pink in color, this wine smells of watermelon rind and hibiscus. In the mouth, juicy bright berry and watermelon rind flavors mix with citrus peel and grapefruit pith. Zippy and tangy, with a faint chalky undertone. Great acidity and freshness. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $20.

2021 Manoella (Wine & Soul) Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of strawberry and black cherry with floral overtones. In the mouth, juicy black cherry flavors mix with dried herbs and floral qualities as faint very fine powdery tannins hang ghostlike in the background. A blend of 60% Touriga Nacional, 25% Touriga Franca, 10% Tinta Roriz, and 5% Tinta Francisca, planted between 1981 and 1987 on patamares terraces without walls. Stainless steel fermented with very gentle pumpovers. Aged for 16 months in used French barriques. 13.5% alcohol. 60,000 bottles made, representing around 50% of the winery’s production. Score: around 9. Cost: $30. click to buy.

2021 Pintas (Wine & Soul) “Character” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in color, this wine smells of black cherry and floral aromas. In the mouth, faintly salty flavors of black cherry, boysenberry, and cassis are wrapped in a downy throw of tannins as fantastic acidity keeps things juicy through a long finish. Remarkably restrained tannins. A field blend of more than 30 grapes with vine age greater than 60 years. Foot-trodden in lagars and then aged in 10% new oak for 18 months. 14.5% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $50. click to buy.

2021 Pintas (Wine & Soul) Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Inky opaque purple in color, this wine smells of black tea, dried flowers, and boysenberries. In the mouth, intense boysenberry and black tea flavors mix with black cherry crushed herbs, and a hint of fennel. Slightly more muscular tannins wrap around the fresh, juicy core of fruit with fantastic acidity and length. Hints of orange peel linger in the finish. Powerful and complex, but again without a lot of weight on the palate. A 93-year-old vineyard with more than 40 different varieties, of which 15 varieties represent 80% of the blend including Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, and Tinta Roriz. Spends 20 months in 20% new oak. 14.5% alcohol. Between 4000 and 6000 bottles made. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $165. click to buy.

2020 Pintas (Wine & Soul) Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Inky garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black cherry, blueberry, and blackcurrant with flowers layered on top. In the mouth, gorgeous black cherry and boysenberry flavors are juicy and bright with excellent acidity. Fleecy, supple tannins hang gently in the background without muscle, as notes of mocha, black tea, and flowers linger in a long finish. Juicy and delicious with great freshness. Powerful without weight. A 93-year-old vineyard with more than 40 different varieties, of which 15 varieties represent 80% of the blend including Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, and Tinta Roriz. Spends 20 months in 20% new oak. 14.5% alcohol. Between 4000 and 6000 bottles made. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $150. click to buy.

2005 Pintas (Wine & Soul) Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Remarkably youthful in appearance – mostly a ruby hue with some garnet still quite present. Smells of stewed meat, roasted figs, mocha, and forest floor. In the mouth, plush tannins caress a core of black cherry, smoked meat, dried herbs, and forest floor with a richness and muscularity that is quite compelling. Lovely citrus notes in the finish. There’s oak here (approximately 70% new), but it is well-integrated at this point. 14% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $n/a

2021 Quinta da Manoella (Wine & Soul) “VV – Vinhas Velhas” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of mulberries and blackberries, dried flowers, and aromatic herbs. In the mouth, fantastically juicy acidity makes flavors of blackberry, black cherry, mulberry, and raspberry positively mouthwatering. Aromatic herbs and flowers swirl through the wine as powdery tannins coat the mouth. Complex and variegated, with great balance and structure. 14% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $145. click to buy.

2020 Quinta da Manoella (Wine & Soul) “VV – Vinhas Velhas” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black tea with bergamot, dried flowers, and boysenberry fruit. In the mouth, incredibly juicy flavors of boysenberry and black cherry are shot through with bergamot and black tea. Incredibly supple, soft tannins and great acidity and length. Soaring aromatics and incredible complexity that lasts for minutes in the mouth. Poised, balanced, and shimmering in constantly shifting flavors and aromas. A 100+ year-old field blend of more than 40 varieties grown on terraced schist slopes. The vine mix includes lots of Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, Tinta Francisca, and more, including Baga (aka Tinta da Bairrada). Foot trodden in lagares and aged in old French oak barrels, between 15% and 20% new, for 22 months. 14% alcohol. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $145. click to buy.

Quinta da Pedra Alta: Serious Alternative to Football

After 10 years working at a historic Douro estate, winemaker João Pires got a new boss who wasn’t anything like his old boss, and all because he had befriended a curious Australian winemaker several years before.

When Pires was hired in 2009, Quinta da Pedra Alta had been in the same family for 5 generations. It boasts the distinction of being the only Douro estate on which you can find three intact feitoria, the 18th-century granite markers that were used to mark the boundaries of a designated Port vineyard.

Pires was a young ambitious winemaker with big ideas that didn’t seem to fit in the traditional mold of the estate he was being asked to manage. At least that’s how Australian winemaker Matt Gant saw things when he came across Pires in his explorations of the Douro. The two became friends, and Pires, as well as Quinta da Pedra Alta, made quite an impression on Gant.

In 2016, due to some unforeseen financial pressures, the family decided they needed to sell the estate and started looking around for buyers. Gant found out, and knowing that a school chum of his was in the market for a vineyard, he convinced him to come take a look at the Douro.

That school chum happened to be the Englishman Ed Woodward, the CEO of the Manchester United football team, and he fell in love with the Douro and was very impressed with Pires.

One thing led to another, and all of a sudden, things were quite different at this traditional old estate. All of a sudden Pires’ Australian friend was serving as his consulting winemaker, and Pires was tasked with helping to revitalize the estate and make the shift to producing high-quality wines from only estate fruit (the estate had been making a lot of wine from purchased fruit in the past). He was all too happy to comply, especially given the willingness of his new boss to invest in doing things well from the start.

A young winemaker with the energy and ideas that often accompany youth, Pires has focused on quality across the 35 hectares (86.5 acres) that the estate owns and has been pushing the wines out of a traditional mold and towards something fresher and more vibrant, exploring territory exposed by winemakers such as Seabra and Maçanita, but with the resources of foreign investment behind him. Farming is now done with more precision, picking happens slightly earlier, and the wines are more youthful and zippy.

Not every old estate revitalized by new money ends up making soulful, place-driven wines, but this one has, and in so doing offers a model that perhaps others will follow.

Pires has been making small amounts of his own wines since 2015, and I have included notes on those as well below. Very few of the wines are currently available in the US.

2022 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Pedra a Pedra” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Palest gold in the glass, this wine smells of green apples and star fruit with a hint of grapefruit pith. In the mouth, bright green apple and grapefruit flavors are crisp and slightly saline with a chalky tannic grip and wonderful minerality. A light floral quality persists in the finish. A blend of 59% Rabigato, 40% Gouveio, and 1% Donzelinho Branco. Whole-bunch pressed and then fermented with native yeasts in stainless steel tanks with temperature control. Aged sur-lie in stainless steel tanks for 6 months. 11.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $24

2018 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Pedra a Pedra” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Near colorless in the glass, this wine smells of white flowers and beeswax. In the mouth, juicy and bright Asian pear and white floral flavors mix with winter melon and star fruit. A faint chalky grip lingers with citrus pith and bright acidity in the finish. Nice length. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $24.

2022 Quinta da Pedra Alta “QPA Prova Nº 5” Donzelinho Branco, Douro, Portugal
Palest blonde in color with a hint of bronze, this wine smells of wild herbs and lemon pith. In the mouth, electric acidity makes lemon pith and lime flavors buzz with vibrancy across the palate. Mouthwatering with a hint of salinity and a deeply wet-chalkboard minerality. Native fermentation in stainless steel tank and then aged sur-lie before bottling. 11.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $??

2021 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Reserva” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of salty and flinty lemon oil and resin. In the mouth, salty lemon pith, grapefruit, oyster shell, and wet pavement flavors have a fantastic acidity and mouthwatering salty character. A blend of 85% Viosinho, 10% Gouveio, and 5% Rabigato. Whole-bunch pressed to French oak puncheons where it ferments with native yeasts. Spends 10 months in 20% new French oak puncheons. 12% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $30.

2022 Quinta da Pedra Alta “QPA Prova No. 6” Rosé of Touriga Nacional, Douro, Portugal
Palest peachy pink in the glass, this wine smells of citrus peel and herbs. In the mouth, floral and citrus peel flavors are shot through with the scent of berries and a touch of watermelon. Crisp, bright, and fresh with excellent acidity. Comes from a vineyard block in a back valley with deeper soils and more shade that seemed like it might be best for rosé (even though João thinks it’s a waste of good red grapes). 100% Touriga Nacional natively fermented in stainless steel tank. 11% alcohol. Closed with Vinolok glass stopper. Score: around 9. Cost: $??

2021 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Pedra a Pedra Clarete” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Light ruby in the glass, this wine smells of salad greens and strawberries. In the mouth, green herbs and salad greens mix with strawberries and sour cherry fruit. Crispy crunchy acidity and a light tannic grip, with hints of arugula in the finish along with a touch of citrus peel. A blend of 51% Tinta Barroca, 23% Malvasia, 12% Donzelinho Branco, 8% Touriga Nacional, and 6% Viosinho. Native-yeast fermented with 40% whole bunch and spends 5 days on the skins. Aged sur-lie in a stainless steel tank for 10 months. 11.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $??

2020 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Pedra a Pedra” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black tea, dried flowers, and dark berries. In the mouth, black cherry and blackberry flavors have a wonderful bright juiciness thanks to excellent acidity. Fleecy tannins with a suede-like texture seem quite restrained given the heat of the year. A lovely sweet berry note lingers in the finish with black tea. A blend of 51% Touriga Nacional, 34% Tinta Barroca, 11% Touriga Franca, and 4% Sousão. Ferments natively in granite lagars and stainless steel tanks with temperature control. Spends 10 days on the skins and then ages for 18 months in a combination of 70% stainless steel tanks and 30% French oak barriques and hogsheads. 14% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $28.

2020 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Reserva” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of sweet oak and dark fruit. In the mouth, sweet berry fruit and sweet oak flavors are wrapped in a suede-like blanket of tannins. Fantastic acidity. Dark cherry, sweet oak, and cocoa powder linger in the finish along with an earthy stony quality. A bit too much wood for my taste, but a compelling wine nonetheless. A blend of 61% Touriga Nacional, 21% Touriga Franca, 16% Tinta Barroca, and 2% Sousão. Ferments with native yeasts in 1-ton bins and granite lagars where it spends 10-12 days on skins. Ages for 20 months sur lie in new French oak of various formats. 14.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $32.

2018 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Reserva” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in color, this wine smells of dark berries, cedar, earth, and dried herbs. In the mouth, black cherry, cocoa powder, dried herbs, and dried flowers mix with a wonderfully bright acidity that has a citrus peel quality. Fleecy tannins coat the mouth, and a dried fennel seed note lingers in the finish. A blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, and 2% Sousão. Ferments with native yeast in 1-ton bins and granite lagars, where it spends 10-12 days on the skins. Ages for 20 months sur lie in new French oak of various formats. 14.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $32.

2020 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Rio” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of cedar, cocoa powder, and dark berry fruit. In the mouth, mocha and sweet oak suffuse black cherry and dark chocolate flavors. Powdery, fleecy, and muscular tannins. This wine has the “expensive oak” quality to it, but with excellent acidity and length and even a bit of herbal freshness. A big, broad-shouldered wine. A blend of 99% Touriga Franca and 1% Tinto Cão. Ferments with native yeast in 1-ton bins and granite lagars, where it spends 10-12 days on the skins. Ages for 20 months sur lie in new French oak of various formats. 15% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $45.

2018 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Rio” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of dark chocolate, dark cherry, and black plum fruit. In the mouth, fleecy, plush tannins wrap around a core of juicy dark cherry and black plum shot through with blackberry and dried fennel seeds. Dried flowers and herbs linger in the finish. Excellent acidity. A blend of 99% Touriga Franca and 1% Tinta Roriz. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $45.

2020 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Alto” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of boysenberry and black cherry fruit with a hint of aromatic black tea. In the mouth, juicy boysenberry and black cherry fruits mix with black tea and flowers. Fantastic, mouthwatering acidity, hints of cedar not much overt sense of oak, with light, fleecy tannins. Long and delicious. A blend of 96.5% Touriga Nacional, 1% Touriga Franca, 1% Sousão, 1% Tinto Cão, and 0.5% Fernão Pires grown at 450-500 meters of elevation. Ferments with native yeast in a combination of 1-ton bins and granite lagars, where it spends 10-12 days on the skins. Ages for 20 months sur lie in new French oak of various formats. 14.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $45.

2018 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Alto” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass with ruby highlights, this wine smells of faintly meaty black cherry and boysenberry fruit. In the mouth, fleecy tannins wrap around faintly saline flavors of black cherry, black plum, and boysenberry shot through with a faint umami/dashi character. The tannins are slightly drying, and there’s a flavor of oak in the finish. Excellent acidity though. A blend of 96.5% Touriga Nacional, 1% Touriga Franca, 1% Sousão, 1% Tinto Cão, and 0.5% Fernão Pires grown at 450-500 meters of elevation. Ferments with native yeast in a combination of 1-ton bins and granite lagars, where it spends 10-12 days on the skins. Ages for 20 months sur lie in new French oak of various formats. 15% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $45.

2020 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Melhor” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of bright boysenberries and flowers. In the mouth, really juicy and bright boysenberry, cherry, and plum flavors have fantastic acidity and juiciness even as they are wrapped in fine-grained, muscular tannins. Juicy juicy, juicy. The wine has an impressive toned, athletic quality to its texture. Outstanding. This wine is a barrel selection of the best from each vintage. A blend of 89% Touriga Nacional, 9% Touriga Franca, 1% Tinto Cão, and 1% Sousão. Ferments with native yeast in a combination of 1-ton bins and granite lagars, where it spends 10-12 days on the skins. Ages for 20 months sur lie in new French oak of various formats. You’d never guess this was 15% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $. click to buy.

2018 Quinta da Pedra Alta “Melhor” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in color, this wine smells of black plum, flowers, and black tea. In the mouth, fleecy, slightly drying tannins surround a core of black cherry and boysenberry fruit with hints of black tea and flowers. A touch of citrus peel and plum skin linger in the finish. Excellent acidity and freshness, but the oak feels a bit heavy handed here, not in terms of flavor per se but in terms of tannins. A blend of 89% Touriga Nacional, 9% Touriga Franca, 1% Tinto Cão, and 1% Sousão. Ferments with native yeast in a combination of 1-ton bins and granite lagars, where it spends 10-12 days on the skins. Ages for 20 months sur lie in new French oak of various formats. 14.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $60.

NV Quinta da Pedra Alta “Pedra No.3” White Port, Porto, Portugal
Pale greenish gold in the glass, this wine smells of white flowers, wet chalkboard, and an ethereal, floral sweetness. In the mouth, light to moderately sweet flavors of white flowers mix with herbs, white tea, and honey. Beautifully light with great acidity. Fresh and bright. A blend of 56% Rabigato, 32% Gouveio, and 12% Viosinho, mainly from the 2022 vintage. Ferments in stainless steel. Fortified to 18% alcohol with 84g/l residual sugar. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $??

NV Quinta da Pedra Alta “Alta No. 10” Ten-Year-Old Tawny Port, Porto, Portugal
Light caramel in color with a core of light ruby, this wine smells of caramel, melted brown sugar, and toffee. In the mouth, good acidity delivers flavors of raisins, roasted figs, melted brown sugar, and coffee nibs. Very sweet with good acidity. A blend of Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Touriga Nacional, and Touriga Franca foot trodden in traditional granite lagars and then aged in old Port casks in the Douro Valley rather than in Porto. Fortified to 19.5% alcohol, with 106 g/l residual sugar. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $45.

2018 Quinta da Pedra Alta Vintage Port, Porto, Portugal
Very dark ruby in the glass with some garnet highlights, this wine smells of sweet dark berries and brown sugar. In the mouth, fleecy tannins surround flavors of black cherry, cassis, and blueberries mixed with chocolate, caramel and licorice. Excellent acidity and freshness with a dark grapey aspect. A blend of 49% Touriga Nacional, 27.5% Touriga Franca, 13% Tinta Roriz, 9% Sousão and 1.5% Tinta Barroca. Ferments with wild yeasts in one-ton bins and granite lagars. Spends 10 days on skins and then 20 months in stainless steel; 3-micron cartridge filtration. 104 g/l residual sugar. Fortified to 19.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $60.

2021 João Pires “Melanino” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Light straw color, this wine smells of pears, lemon pith, and melon. In the mouth, a lightly grippy texture delivers melon and Asian pear flavors mixed with citrus pith. Excellent juicy acidity keeps things bright along with a stony minerality and faint salinity. Delicious. A blend of Gouveio, Donzelinho Branco, Malvasia Rei, and Arinto grown on schist. Vines range between 15 and 91 years of age and grow between 550 and 650 meters of elevation. Ferments with wild yeast in used barrels and concrete vat. The Arinto gets skin contact for 5 days, and is then pressed to amphora. 11.5% alcohol. 1800 barrels made. Score: around 9. Cost: $??

2020 João Pires “Bardino” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of wonderfully floral cherry and strawberry fruit. In the mouth, cherry and strawberry fruit mix with herbs and a hint of earthiness. Excellent acidity and faint tannins, with flavors of black tea, citrus peel, floral notes, and earth lingering in the finish. A blend of Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, and Tinta Barroca from three vineyards. Gets 30-40% whole cluster fermentation with native yeasts in 1-ton fermenters and ages in 10% new oak. 13.5% alcohol. 3000 bottles made. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $??

2017 João Pires “Bardino” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet, headed towards ruby in the glass, this wine smells of faintly meaty berries, black tea, and flowers. In the mouth, faintly saline flavors of black cherry, plum, and plum skin mix with black tea, dried flowers, and citrus peel. Excellent acidity and powdery tannins. Juicy and delicious. Aging beautifully. 13.5% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $??

João Magalhaes: Indie Cred

João Magalhaes trained as an enologist even though he was expecting to take over management of his family’s vineyard holdings in the Douro, which he has done.

“My family has owned vineyards since forever,” he says, “and for that long, we have been selling grapes to others. But then my dad told me that we needed to sell one of our farms to make ends meet. I told him that instead of selling, I will make wine instead. Selling grapes is not very profitable.”

This was around the time that Magalhaes was doing a vintage in Australia where he met winemaker Matt Grant, who encouraged him to pursue the idea of making his own wine. The family farms many of the old mixed and eclectic vineyards that rated the “F” grade in the old Port-based grading system, meaning Magalhaes has a lot of interesting things to work with, including a lot of white wine grapes, many of which are mixed in with his reds.

Knowing that this was a deliberate and calculated decision by the growers who planted these vineyards more than 100 years ago, Magalhaes persists in making them into a wine fully representative of the vineyard, no matter how much it defies traditional notions of what “red” wine means from the Douro.

He thinks he’ll be doing more of this in the future. “People don’t really like the single grape varietals,” he says. “When I took my Touriga Franca bottle and put ‘Tinto’ on the label, it sold much better.”

Magalhaes farms around 20 hectares, selling most of the grapes, but gradually building his own brand. Unfortunately, the wines aren’t easy to find even in Portugal, so most readers will not have a prayer of getting their hands on them.

2021 Jo & Co “Ati Tude” Arinto, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass with a hint of green, this wine smells of lemon and lime pith layered over wet chalkboard. In the mouth, the wine has searing acidity that makes the mouth water. Gorgeously salty lime and lemon pith flavors tingle in the front of the mouth. Deeply mineral. Go get your oysters!! Whole-cluster pressed and then fermented in steel with wild yeasts. Ages for 9 months on the lees in tank and then 1 year in bottle before selling. 12% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

2019 Jo & Co “Ati Tude” Gouveio, Douro, Portugal
Light gold in the glass, this wine smells of dried apples and citrus peel, in the mouth bright angular citrus pith and apple have a chalky character. Very mineral and more oxidative. Salty and bright. Whole bunches pressed directly into barrel, and no sulfur or topping for a year, then straight into the bottle for three more years. Score: between 8 and 8.5.

2021 Jo & Co “Ati Tude” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of Earl Grey tea with a hint of smoke and herbs. In the mouth, very juicy black cherry and raspberry flavors mix with black tea and sour cherry. Juicy with a faint hint of salinity. Crunchy with bright acidity and stony, tight muscular tannins. Mostly 20-year-old vines of Touriga Franca, with 5% Alicante Bouschet. Whole bunches are foot trod in individual old oak barrels and then the wine is pressed back into old barrels. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.

2019 Jo & Co “Vale Salgueiro – Vinha do Torquata” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of flowers, herbs, and dark plum. In the mouth, gorgeous blackberry, black cherry, and licorice flavors mix with herbs and flowers. Fleecy tannins gain muscle over time but juicy acidity keeps things fresh. Notes of tea and flowers linger in the finish with a hint of plum skin. Comes from an old, .5-hectare vineyard at 200 meters of elevation maybe more than 100 years old but official records put it at 1932 planting. It contains 31 different varieties, both red and white. Whole bunches are foot-stomped in granite lagars and then the juice is put into used barrels for 2 years before bottling. 14% alcohol. 1000 bottles made. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

2022 Jo & Co “XY” Moscatel Gallego, Douro, Portugal
Medium amber in the glass, this wine smells of bitter orange, blood orange, and herbs, smelling almost like a vermouth. In the mouth, grippy tannins surround a core of moderately sweet orange peel, dried herbs, and a hint of caramel and licorice root. Amazing stony finish. One pick is made at a low potential alcohol, perhaps 10% or so. The grapes are foot-stomped in a bin until they naturally begin fermentation and then pumpovers are made twice per day. The fermentation is halted with brandy while still on skins and fortified to 17%. Aged in stainless for 1 year before bottling. Unusual and distinct. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

Quinta do Vale Meão: Classic Staying Power

When it comes to tracing the history of the Douro, Quinta do Vale Meão plays an oversized role. As storied and prominent Port producer with a hard-to-miss spectacular location on the most extreme bend in the Douro River, Quinta do Vale Meão was established in 1895 by Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, who was at the time the largest landowner in the Douro region and one of the wine world’s OG female wine magnates. Originally a virgin plot of 300 hectares wrapping around the hill of Monte Meão, the Vale Meão vineyard took 7 years to develop, and once in production, quickly became one of the gems of the Douro under the management of Companhia Agrícola e Comercial dos Vinhos do Porto, better known as Casa Ferreirinha.

The estate has been owned by descendants of the Ferreira family ever since. In 1952, when Casa Ferreirinha winemaker Fernando Nicolau de Almeida decided to create Barca Velha, the first modern dry red table wine from the Douro, he selected the Vale Meão estate as the source for this iconic, expensive wine that has only been made 18 times since.

In 1966 Francisco Javier de Olazabal joined Casa Ferreirinha. Olazabal is Antónia Adelaide Ferreira’s great-grandson and was appointed by the rest of the family to manage the Vale Meão property in 1973. Casa Ferreirinha was purchased by SoGrape in 1990, and Olazabal would go on to purchase Vale Meão outright in 1994 and cease selling grapes in 2000 to focus exclusively on making estate wines. His son, also named Francisco Olazabal (but better-known to his friends as “Xito”) joined his father in 1998 and now serves as winemaker and managing director.

In a region of stunning vineyards, Quinta do Vale Meão is amongst the most impressive for a number of reasons, including the fact that it possesses a relatively large section of vineyard that is not on a steep hillside abutting the river. The estate’s large bit of rolling benchland that sits next to the river is doubly remarkable because it features soils dominated by rounded river cobbles that resemble the famous galets roulés found in France’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape region. Quinta do Vale Meão is the only vineyard in the Douro with this type of terroir.

Xito Olazabal’s grandfather was one of the first winemakers to bring Bordeaux techniques to the Douro, and a pioneer of temperature-controlled fermentations in the region (done at first by shipping ice into the valley), a fact that had Vale Meão moving away from the use of traditional lagars for still wines very early in its history.

“My grandfather was a crazy guy,” says Olazabal. “People called him a poet but he was very scientific. He went to Bordeaux and Burgundy and saw their vats, he asked, ‘So how do you do the foot treading in those vats?’ and they taught him how they make wine. He brought those techniques, as well as cultured yeasts to the Douro for the first time. He was a pioneer and made great wines.”

Today the estate’s still wines are fermented almost entirely in steel and oak barrels, with the temperature control that Olazabal believes is crucial for maintaining freshness and elegance.

At first, Vale Meão made only two wines: Meandro, a reasonably priced, larger production red table wine, and Vale Meão, a red field blend selection from the estate’s oldest and best vineyards. Starting about 10 years ago, the estate began making some single-vineyard and single-variety bottlings. They eventually purchased some higher-elevation vineyards with white varieties and began making white wines as well.

In 2003, Olazabal was one of the founding members of a group that became known as the Douro Boys, who set out to elevate the reputation of the region’s table wines with great success.

Vale Meão’s wines have stayed consistent in style and quality for more than two decades now. The Meandro bottling is one of the country’s (perhaps even the world’s) great wine values. At around $35 in the US, it drinks like wines twice its price. The flagship bottling, known simply as Quinta do Vale Meão, remains one of the Douro’s top wines and consistently expresses the graceful richness and power that this mountainous region is capable of producing. It is a wine that helped define what Douro reds could be and remains true to that classic expression.

2021 Monte Meão “Vinha da Cantina” Baga, Douro, Portugal
Light to medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of earth, herbs, and berries. In the mouth, bright juicy berry flavors have a fine cottony tannin structure and excellent acidity. Hints of citrus peel and herbs linger in the finish. A 1-hectare vineyard of Baga grown in granite. Fermented 50% whole-cluster in wooden vats. 2000 bottles made. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $40.

2021 Monte Meão “Vinha dos Novos” Touriga Nacional, Douro, Portugal
Medium purple in the glass, this wine smells of violets and black tea. In the mouth, the wine is wonderfully juicy and bright, with electric boysenberry and blueberry fruit shot through with powdered stone tannins that have a light touch. Great acidity keeps things super juicy and fruity, but with enough texture and structure to stay well this side of frivolous. Very tasty. A single-vineyard expression of Touriga Nacional planted on granite close to the Douro River. 13.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $45.

2021 Monte Meão “Casa das Maquinas” Touriga Franca, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of Earl Grey tea with hints of orange peel and boysenberry. In the mouth, wonderfully juicy flavors of boysenberry, black plum, and cherry have a faint fleecy texture of tannins, but mostly the fruit shines. Excellent acidity and a stony underbelly that reminds you that schist hosts the vines. One of the oldest vineyards at the Quinta – 1.5 hectares of Touriga Franca with a bit of Tinta Barroca planted in 1971. 13.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $??

2020 Monte Meão “Cabeço Vermelho” Tinta Roriz, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of bright cherry fruit with hints of cola and herbs. In the mouth, bright cherry and black cherry fruit flavors are sweet and bright and are wrapped in fleecy tannins as bright citrus peel acidity lingers with hints of fennel in the finish. The tannins are quite restrained. 14.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $45.

2022 Quinta do Vale Meão “Meandro” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of white flowers, citrus pith, and Asian pear. In the mouth, lean citrus pith and Asian pear flavors mix with herbs and white tea. Lean, and brisk with excellent acidity. 12.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $20. click to buy.

2021 Quinta do Vale Meão “Meandro” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of apple, white flowers, and Asian pear. In the mouth, bright Asian pear and green apple flavors mix with lemon pith and grapefruit. Bright, juicy, and clean. 12.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $20. click to buy.

2021 Quinta do Vale Meão “Meandro” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black tea with bergamot and boysenberry fruit. In the mouth, juicy black cherry and boysenberry flavors are wrapped in fleecy tannins with great acidity. Hints of herbs and dried citrus peel linger in the finish. A blend of 40% Touriga Nacional, 30% Touriga Franca, 10% Tinta Roriz, and the rest a mix of other local varieties. 14% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $35. click to buy.

2013 Quinta do Vale Meão “Meandro” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of incredibly aromatic and perfumed flowers, black cherries, and black tea. In the mouth, sweet cherry, cedar, and boysenberry fruit flavors have a wonderful brightness and excellent acidity. Juicy with faint plush tannins. 14% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $35. click to buy.

2021 Quinta do Vale Meão Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black cherry, blackberry, and cocoa powder. In the mouth, wonderfully bright and juicy boysenberry, cherry, and raspberry fruit are shot through with hints of dried herbs. Fantastic acidity and notes of flowers linger in the finish. Fleecy tannins. A blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, and various local varieties. Blocks of varieties are fermented separately and then blended. Ages in 30% new oak. 14% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $200. click to buy.

2011 Quinta do Vale Meão Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of licorice, dried flowers, cola, and boysenberries. In the mouth, wonderfully juicy boysenberry and black cherry flavors mix with black tea and dried flowers. Juicy, bright, fine tannins give volume to the wine but not much grip at this point. Well-integrated with great acidity. 14.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $300.

Quinta dos Murças: Old-school Organic Persistence

For every one of the famous Douro Boys estates, there are dozens of older Douro estates managing the transition from a world centered on Port, to one focused on non-fortified wines. Some of these estates are quite storied, with exceptional vineyard sites.

Quinta dos Murças is one such estate. Owned by Esporao, the Alentejo-based conglomerate company that is one of Portugal’s largest wine producers. An extremely progressive company, it has been working to convert every one of its 1300 acres of vineyards to organic production since 2007.

Esporao purchased the dos Murças estate in 2008, but its storied history can be traced back to the 18th century. In 1947, the estate made the (at the time) radical decision to plant a vineyard that defied convention and logic at the time. Almost all of the vineyards in the Douro (as observable in the many photos in this article) are planted horizontally along the contours of the hillsides and valleys of the winding river valley. What is now known as the VV47 vineyard was planted vertically, with the rows running straight up the hillside away from the river, the first such planting in the Douro.

While the specific reason for the vertical planting in 1947 has been lost to history, the obvious benefits of such an approach are not lost on its current owners.

“Now 88% of our estate is planted vertical,” says winemaker Lourenço Charters. “With vertical planting you can get many more plants per hectare, which gives us greater competition and sends the roots deeper. Our carbon footprint is less than half [than for terraced vineyards] because tractors are traveling shorter distances when they don’t have to go around terraces.”

“I always learned that terraces were better from an erosion standpoint,” continues Charters, “but when you make the terraces you have to move a lot of earth, and that makes erosion more likely. The new vineyards we planted don’t change nature as much.”

Charters admits that vertically oriented vineyards are harder to work in, but says everyone at the estate is convinced that’s an easy trade-off for the resulting quality.

The Murças estate covers 150 hectares (370 acres) of which nearly 100 hectares are forest and scrubland, a level of isolation that makes it easier for the estate to be 100% certified organic, which it has been since 2021, after ten years of hard work towards that goal. Those ten years (and the three before that) were also spent doing detailed studies of every inch of the estate’s vineyards in order to understand what it was capable of.

“Instead of deciding what wines to make based on the market, we decided what wines to make based on what the estate offered,” says Charters, who goes on to explain that for the first eight years of ownership, until they truly understood what they were working with, they only made two wines. Only later did they begin to expand their portfolio based on what they thought the land did best.

Esporao has the resources and the long-term outlook (the company’s motto is “Slow Forward”) as well as a commitment to sustainability that seem like they are driving Dos Murças in the right direction. However, at the moment, the wines come across as a bit old-fashioned, a little hard or stiff in their overall aspect, and perhaps less exciting than they could be. Their VV47 wine, made in only the best years, is the standout of the portfolio, but even it lacks the dynamism of wines from other estates whose bottlings feel more vibrant and contemporary.

2021 Quinta dos Murças “Assobio” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of faintly smoky blackberry and black cherry. In the mouth, juicy black cherry and blackberry flavors mix with black tea and dried herbs. Fleecy tannins are restrained and add a nice texture to a juicy freshness of the fruit. The wine has a savory finish of dried herbs and black tea. A blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, and Tinto Roriz. 13% alcohol. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $13. click to buy.

2021 Quinta dos Murças “Minas” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of huckleberry and blackberry with crushed fresh herbs and a hint of wet wood. In the mouth, stony, savory flavors of black cherry and blackberry mix with earth and powdered stone. Powdery, fine-grained tannins give this wine a sort of stony impenetrability. Excellent acidity and freshness. From several blocks that have similar soils. A blend of Touriga Nacional, Tinta Franca, Tinta Francisca, Tinta Cao, and Tinta Roriz from young vineyards, all co-fermented. Minas means springs, referencing the fact that there are several in the vineyard. A small portion of the wine is fermented with whole clusters but mostly destemmed. Organically farmed. 12.5% alcohol. 70,000 bottles made. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $26. click to buy.

2021 Quinta dos Murças “Margem” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of bergamot, black tea, and dark berries. In the mouth, powdery, muscular tannins wrap around a stony core of black cherry, blackberry, and black plum. Excellent acidity and a mineral undertone with savory herbal notes. Fermented and foot trod in a stone lagar with wild yeast. Aged in used barrels. A blend of 80% Touriga Franca and 20% Touriga Nacional planted in 1980 and farmed organically. 3000 bottles made. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $55. click to buy.

2017 Quinta dos Murças “Reserva” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of raisins, roasted figs, and black cherry. In the mouth, rich black cherry, raisin, and black fig flavors have a nice acidity and freshness, but the fruit is riper and darker in quality. Hints of licorice and dark chocolate in the finish. Fleecy tannins remain quite supple. A field blend of more than 15 different grape varieties planted in 1980, aged for 18 months in old oak. Some barrels are only 3-5 years old as opposed to 7-10 which is the standard. Released with bottle age. 13.5% alcohol. 20,000 bottles made. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $40. click to buy.

2017 Quinta dos Murças “VV47” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of wet stone, berries, and herbs. In the mouth, fleecy tannins wrap around a core of dried herbs, cocoa powder, black cherry, black tea, and mulberry flavors. Excellent acidity and a sort of creamy aspect that is quite distinctive. There’s a lot of swirling complexity here, and a stony quality that is quite impressive. Excellent acidity and Earl Grey tea flavors linger in the finish. A blend of 11 varieties dominated by Touriga Franca. Comes from a .07 ha vineyard planted in dense schist in 1947, the first vertically oriented vineyard rows in the Douro. This cuvee is made only in exceptional years. 13% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $70. click to buy.

NV Quinta dos Murças 10-year Tawny Port, Porto, Portugal
Dark ruby with hints of coffee highlights, this wine smells of coffee and chocolate. In the mouth, rich sweet caramel and toffee flavors mix with a hint of berry fruitiness that is replaced in the finish with vanilla, café-au-lait, and brown sugar flavors that linger for a long time on the palate with a hint of mulling spices. Excellent acidity. 19.5% alcohol. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $35. click to buy.

Quinta do Crasto: Age and Innovation

While the answer might be different depending on who you speak to, it’s probably safe to say that for every major wine region in the world, there’s one “unmissable,” iconic wine estate that answers the question, “If you could go to only one place, where would you go?”

When it came time to visit the Douro, that place, for me, was Quinta do Crasto, one of the Douro’s oldest producers.

The earliest records naming the estate as a distinct winegrowing property begin in 1615, and throughout the storied history of the Douro region as a Port-producing area, Crasto appears regularly as a well-known and respected property. The estate eventually fell within the original 18th-century demarcation of the prime Port region, as evidenced by the granite Feitoria marker that still stands near the family home.

The modern history of the estate began in 1918 when the already famous property was purchased by Constantino de Almeida, who had steadily built his own small Port and brandy empire under the Constantino name. Following his death in 1923, Almeida’s descendants managed the enterprise until the 1950s when financial pressures led them to sell the Constantino brand to Ferreira, who chose not to continue the name.

“My grandfather, he sold everything but Crasto,” says Miguel Roquette. “He wanted Crasto for himself.” Roquette’s mother, Leonor, along with her husband Jorge, took over management of the estate from her father in 1981.

The Roquette name is well known in Portugal when it comes to wine, thanks to the family’s ownership of Esporaõ, which Jorge’s father founded in 1973 and which Jorge’s brother João currently runs.

“My father Jorge is something of a visionary,” says Miguel. “He always believed the future of the Douro was going to be dry red wine. So in 1994, we called up my uncle and his winemaker David Baverstock, and said, ‘We need David’s help with an experiment.'”

Baverstock was excited to help in the production of the estate’s first dry red, and that experiment’s success helped to launch the modern table wine movement in the region.

The original Crasto estate began with 130 hectares (321 acres) surrounding the striking promontory on which the family home and winery sit with commanding views up and down the Douro. Of those 130 hectares, less than 60 were planted with vines. In the last 30 years, the Roquette family has expanded their vineyard holdings to become roughly the sixth largest landholder in the Douro, with 220 hectares (543 acres) of vineyards under cultivation and a production level of around 135,000 cases of wine per year, the majority of which is dry table wine.

The maturation of the Crasto estate over the relatively brief 30 years of its modern history has been remarkable for its combination of rapid growth and simultaneous unwavering dedication to quality. For Roquette, it comes down to one thing: farming.

“Our strongest assets are our vineyards, and that is the place where we have invested the most over the last 20 years,” says Roquette. “We’re proud to be 100% estate-grown for everything we make. The exception is 12 hectares of white wine vineyards that we lease and for which we do all the farming.”

The winemaking at Crasto resembles that of many modern luxury wine estates dedicated to making top-quality wines without compromise. Meticulous farming is followed by meticulous harvesting and fruit sorting. A spotless winery hosts temperature-controlled fermentations made with commercial yeasts in steel followed by aging in carefully selected, expensive French oak barrels.

Roquette’s father forged a friendship over decades with the late Jean-Michel Cazes of Bordeaux’s Château Lynch-Bages (among others), which has both informed the winemaking at Crasto as well as blossomed into a full-fledged business relationship. This partnership, among other things, gets Crasto access to top-quality French barrels and resulted in a new brand, Roquette & Cazes, that will soon find a home in a recently purchased riverfront Quinta just upstream of Crasto by a few miles.

As one of the founding members of the Douro Boys, Quinta do Crasto and its wines represent the epitome of what the region thinks of when it comes to the dry red (and white) table wines of the Douro. But instead of doggedly sticking to a formula, winemaker Manuel Lobo and his team in the cellar and the vineyards have a dedicated practice of innovation and experimentation that has resulted in many small tweaks over time, each nudging the wines a bit higher in quality and finesse.

Not simply content to polish their existing gems, the Crasto team have also been experimenting more broadly, whether that be planting Syrah in the granite terroirs of the Upper Douro, or spotlighting Tinta Francisca, a light-bodied, lower-tannin grape traditionally thought unfit for anything but blending.

“So we’re just scratching the surface here, but we are exploring what Tinta Francisca has to offer on one of our properties,” says Roquette. “It is planted at 430 meters and so we’ve decided to call it Altitude 430, and we like to say we are exploring the Burgundian side of the Douro. It’s only 12.5% alcohol, light in color, and super fun.”

Altitude 430 is quite interesting, but at the moment it is still getting the classic luxury treatment in the cellar, which is to say 12 months of mixed-use French oak, when instead it really needs either concrete or old, large format oak to let the fruit and the minerality shine without the polished gloss of wood. While not yet totally successful, the wine, as well as the estate’s experiments with Syrah, represents an unwillingness to rest on the laurels of considerable success, a temptation to which many a winery has easily succumbed.

As with a few other remarkable estates in the Douro, Quinta do Crasto manages the feat of producing relatively large volumes of extremely high-quality wine at shockingly great prices, as well as wonderfully profound and age-worthy icon wines that are among the best in Europe. When the heavy-duty construction that I witnessed at the estate last autumn finally comes to a close, the estate will also have a destination hospitality offering worthy of the already-stunning views, and on par with some of the finest such offerings in the world.

2022 Quinto do Crasto “Crasto Branco” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of wild herbs and citrus pith. In the mouth, apple and pear flavors mix with dried herbs and a hint of citrus pith. Excellent acidity and nice crackling minerality. A blend of Gouveio, Viosinho, and Rabigato. Stainless steel fermented. 12% alcohol. 80,000 bottles made. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $25. click to buy.

2022 Quinto do Crasto “Branco Superior” Branco, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of vanilla, oak, crushed nuts, and white flowers. In the mouth, crisp bright apple and pear flavors mix with vanilla and citrus pith layered over wet chalkboard. Light grippy texture, excellent acidity, and a whisper of salinity. Barrel fermented in French oak with acacia wood heads. A blend of Verdelho and Viosinho. 12.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $33. click to buy.

2021 Quinta do Crasto “Altitude 430” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Medium garnet in the glass, this wine smells of berries and flowers. In the mouth, bright and fresh berry flavors mix with a hint of cocoa powder and vanilla. Faint tannins, bright acidity, and a cedary finish. A blend of 70% Tinta Francisca and 30% Touriga Nacional. Spends 12 months in oak. 12.5% alcohol. 50k bottles made. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $30.

2020 Quinto do Crasto “Crasto” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of herbs and dark berries. In the mouth, dark black cherry and blackberry flavors are shot through with a hint of dried herbs and fresh juicy acidity. Clean and bright, with very fine tannins that hang in the background. A blend of Touriga Nacional, Tinto Roriz, Touriga Franca, and Tinta Barroca. Stainless-steel fermented but 15% of the lot goes into new French oak for 3 months. 14.5% alcohol. Anywhere from 70k to 300k bottles are made depending on the vintage. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $23. click to buy.

2016 Quinto do Crasto “Crasto” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of Earl Grey tea, sweet oak, and dark black cherry. In the mouth, fleecy tannins wrap around a core of black cherry, black tea, herbs, and a touch of earth. A blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francisca, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, and Sousão. Includes a bit of old vine fruit. Spends 12 months in 60% new oak. 13.5% alcohol. Score: around 9. Cost: $23. click to buy.

2020 Quinto do Crasto “Superior” Syrah, Vinho Regional Dureinse, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of blackberry and blueberry fruit. In the mouth, blackberry and blueberry fruit have a nice vanilla sweetness to them along with dark black cherry notes. Faint tannins, excellent acidity, and hints of cassis and flowers in the finish. A blend of 97% Syrah, 3% Viognier. Spends 16 months in French oak. 14.5% alcohol. 30k bottles made. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $??

2016 Quinta do Crasto Touriga Nacional, Douro, Portugal
Dark, opaque garnet in the glass, this wine smells of flowers, black tea, citrus oil, and aromatic herbs. In the mouth, gorgeous black cherry and blackberry fruit mix with dried and fresh flowers, aromatic herbs, and sweet oak. Fine suede tannins have a wonderful suppleness. Phenomenal acidity. Deep and rich. Made from 45 to 50-year-old vines. Spends 18 months in 100% new oak. 13.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $82. click to buy.

2017 Quinta do Crasto Tinta Roriz, Douro, Portugal
Inky garnet in the glass, this wine smells of dark cherry, chocolate, and dried herbs. In the mouth, gorgeously plush and fleecy tannins wrap around a core of dark cherry, tobacco, citrus peel, licorice, and aromatic herbs. Fantastic acidity. Intense, and powerful with a lengthy, impressive finish. Delicious. 14.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $82. click to buy.

2021 Quinto do Crasto “Reserve Old Vines” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine smells of dark cherry and blackberry and herbs and sweet oak. In the mouth, polished dark berry flavors mix with sweet oak, herbs, and licorice. Excellent acidity, great polish, very smooth. Ages for 18 months in French and 15% American oak. Average vine age is 75 years old. 14% alcohol. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $50. click to buy.

2008 Quinta do Crasto “Reserve Old Vines” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Very dark garnet in the glass with a bit of ruby on the edge, this wine has a wonderfully complex aroma that seems to evolve and change as you smell it. Roasted meat, flowers, aromatic herbs, and dark berries give way to black cherry, blueberries, and dark chocolate. In the mouth, wonderfully salty and meaty dark cherry and blueberry fruit flavors mix with dark chocolate, black olive notes, aromatic herbs, and dried flowers. Great acidity. Fine, powdery tannins that hang in the background. Fantastic acidity, and incredible complexity. A knockout of a wine. Score: between 9.5 and 10. Cost: $n/a

2017 Quinta do Crasto “Vinha Maria Teresa” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Dark purple in the glass, this wine smells of bergamot and wildflowers, licorice, and blueberries. In the mouth, juicy flavors of blueberry, blackberry, bergamot, and dried aromatic herbs are wrapped in a fine-grained fist of tannins. Gorgeous freshness, juiciness, and a nice wet chalkboard minerality. Comes from an east-facing, 4.7 ha vineyard of 30,000 vines planted with a field blend of 54 different varieties including 4 white, and one unidentified red. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $260. click to buy.

2018 Quinta do Crasto “Vinha Maria Teresa” Tinto, Douro, Portugal
Inky garnet in the glass, this wine smells of black cherry, raisins, herbs, chocolate, dried herbs, lavender, and mocha. In the mouth, intense aromatic herbs mix with dark berries, black cherry, roasted figs, dark chocolate, and cedar. Thick muscular tannins are a bit much at the moment, but there’s a lovely aromatic sweetness to the wine. Fantastic. Made from 4.7 hectares of 100+ year-old vines. 14.5% alcohol. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $260. click to buy.

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There you have it. If you made it this far, you’re a real trooper. I hope I’ve managed to convey just how much the Douro is a wine region worth exploring deeply, especially as it continues to change and evolve.

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