Quinta da Romaneira Mirante Petit Verdot 2020
£30.25
The wine
A very deep, dark purple colour, displaying intensity on the nose with notes of ink and wild berries accompanied by spices. Well carved and polished on the palate, with a tight structure, immense volume and well-integrated oak. A robust wine that harmoniously combines freshness and complexity of fruit, with a very long finish.
Petit Verdot in the Douro is a considerable departure. In Bordeaux it struggles to ripen and is used in small percentages for colour and structure, but the Douro's heat lets it reach full maturity, and given its own vineyard it produces something dense, inky and firmly structured. Mirante means viewpoint.
The producer
Quinta da Romaneira
View all Quinta da Romaneira winesEstablished in 1757, Quinta da Romaneira is one of the largest single estates in the Douro: 412 hectares with three kilometres of river frontage, of which 86 are planted to vines.
The Douro was the world's first demarcated wine region, mapped and regulated in 1756, so the estate is almost exactly as old as the appellation itself. Its vineyards are cut into terraces on hillsides steep enough that mechanisation is impossible in much of the property, and the soil is schist, a layered rock that splits vertically and lets roots drive deep in search of water. That is what allows vines to survive summers in which the valley regularly exceeds forty degrees.
The many valleys and promontories of the estate give it a range of exposures and several distinct microclimates, which is why single-parcel wines like Liceiras and Mirante make sense here. Both Port and Douro table wine are made, and both are taken equally seriously, which was not always true of Douro estates. The table wines in particular have become some of the most admired in northern Portugal.
