Production
Year - 2007; an exceptional year for Vintage Porto. The growing season was fairly cool for Douro standards, leading to a later harvest of high quality fruit with mature yet fresh (rather than raisined) character.
Grapes - Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca, and a mixture of other varietals from our older vines.
Terroir - schist soil, Mediterranean climate (low, yearly rainfall and dry, hot summers), grade A classified vineyards.
Winemaking - hand-picked, estate-grown grapes undergo pre-fermentation line-up maceration with 3-4 hours per day of foot-treading in traditional lagares for 2 days followed by 2 days of temperature-controlled fermentation. When the natural sugar levels decrease by about half, we stop fermentation via fortification with grape brandy. This Colheita Port wine was then aged for 19 years in neutral, French oak, 550 liter (130 gallon) puncheons before bottling in 2026.
Production - 1.450 bottles
Alcohol - 20,5%
Tasting
See - mahogany with orange tones.
Smell - evolving from dates and dried apricots, to flambeed bananas and pineapple, to pecans and molasses
Sip - concentrated and composed, with focused power and persistence, it finishes with an intriguing note of salted liquorice that left me salivating for more.
Enjoy - now or within 7 years, chilled (10°C/50°F), with roasted or candied nuts (almonds, pecans, hazelnuts), ripe cantaloupe and good quality aged ham (ideally pata negra or another acorn or chestnut fed ham), foie gras with orange or fig jam, panforte, gingerbread or speculoos, a slice of Portugal’s picado de abelha almond tart, flambéed bananas or pineapple, nutty aged Comté or Gouda cheese.