Quinta de la Rosa Late Bottled Vintage Port (500ML) 2014
- Decanter
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Robert
Parker
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Winemaker Notes
Very fresh, young and vibrant fruit. A beautiful port, full of round, soft flavors but with an optimal structure giving this LBV tension and elegance. The port gives immense pleasure for immediate drinking. Please make sure the bottle isn’t kept in direct sunlight otherwise it might oxidize.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
A classic blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Roriz, this restrained LBV has flavours of dark fruit, spice, a slightly herbal floral edge and a cleansing mineral finish. Although not as hefty as some LBVs, this has great lift and refinement – a very elegant take. Drinking Window 2019 - 2023
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Late Bottled Vintage Port was bottled in 2018 with a long cork. It is unfiltered and comes in at 100 grams of residual sugar. This, tasted from a regular 750-milliliter bottle, seems very unlike most of my encounters with this brand, which have always been from a 500-milliliter bottle with a bar-top cork. It is much more expressive, better representing a traditional style. Even though this is from a tricky vintage, it is showing beautifully. Indeed, granting that they were not side by side, I might like it more than the 2014 Vintage Port previously reviewed. This shows reasonable depth, classic flavors and a fine, expressive finish. It should age well too.
Other Vintages
2017-
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Quinta de la Rosa was one of the pioneers of making and selling table wines and olive oil in addition to port directly from the estate. These products are produced, matured and bottled on the Quinta and not in Vila Nova da Gaia as is the case with other shippers. It can be argued that this helps give our ports a dry and stylish nutty flavour. A combination of the best of the old with the new, treading in granite lagares and using stainless steel and temperature controlled technology, together with careful handling of natural materials (such as oak casks for the table wine and large old tonels for the port), ensures that wines of the highest quality are made. As everything is grown, made and bottled on the estate, Quinta de la Rosa is one of the few true "Single Quintas"; it is not a second brand used by most large shippers for their "off Vintage" port years.
Port is a sweet, fortified wine with numerous styles: Ruby, Tawny, Vintage, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), White, Colheita, and a few unusual others. It is blended from from the most important red grapes of the Douro Valley, based primarily on Touriga Nacional with over 80 other varieties approved for use. Most Ports are best served slightly chilled at around 55-65°F.
The home of Port—perhaps the most internationally acclaimed beverage—the Douro region of Portugal is one of the world’s oldest delimited wine regions, established in 1756. The vineyards of the Douro, set on the slopes surrounding the Douro River (known as the Duero in Spain), are incredibly steep, necessitating the use of terracing and thus, manual vineyard management as well as harvesting. The Douro's best sites, rare outcroppings of Cambrian schist, are reserved for vineyards that yield high quality Port.
While more than 100 indigenous varieties are approved for wine production in the Douro, there are five primary grapes that make up most Port and the region's excellent, though less known, red table wines. Touriga Nacional is the finest of these, prized for its deep color, tannins and floral aromatics. Tinta Roriz (Spain's Tempranillo) adds bright acidity and red fruit flavors. Touriga Franca shows great persistence of fruit and Tinta Barroca helps round out the blend with its supple texture. Tinta Cão, a fine but low-yielding variety, is now rarely planted but still highly valued for its ability to produce excellent, complex wines.
White wines, generally crisp, mineral-driven blends of Arinto, Viosinho, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and an assortment of other rare but local varieties, are produced in small quantities but worth noting.
With hot summers and cool, wet winters, the Duoro has a maritime climate.