Quinta da Romaneira Vintage Port 2022
£50.75
The wine
The 2022 vintage is characterised by a deep, dark ruby-purple colour and a wonderfully spicy aromatic profile. Full of personality, this exceptional wine combines great elegance with a palate full of pure fruit flavours, complemented by deliciously fleshy, velvety tannins.
Vintage Port is declared only in exceptional years, perhaps three times a decade, and represents a tiny fraction of production. It spends barely two years in wood before bottling, so it matures in glass rather than cask, which is why it needs decades and always throws a heavy sediment. Sousao adds acidity and colour to the blend.
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.
