Wine & Soul Pintas Vintage Port 2019
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Parker
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James
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pintas Vintage Port is a field blend from more than 40 different grapes from very old vines (around 90 years). It comes in with 108 grams of residual sugar and was bottled in May 2021 after 19 months in old chestnut casks. Wine & Soul has gradually made itself into a top Port producer, easily competing with the old and big names. This is another great example, a fine companion to some brilliant ones in the last few vintages. Which is the best? This has a pretty good chance of claiming that prize, but let's come back around 2035 for a better view. In the meanwhile, it looks like one of the finest 2019s I have seen. Intensely powerful, this is a very different style, happily, than the producer's table wines. With table wines, they avoid rusticity and make polished wines. That's not to say this is too astringent, but this Port lets it all hang out, with some old-school power and intensity. The beautiful fruit is pretty fine too, and it smells great. To be sure, it is a little subdued by the pure power today. A few days later, the lovely fruit asserts itself more. A few more days (six days from the first pour), it had hardly budged again. If someone told me that it had just been opened an hour earlier, that would've been believable. It then adds fine mid-palate finesse, never seeming ponderous but always seeming deep. This is going to need at least a decade of cellaring. That just gets you to approachability, as I don't think it will be close to ready at that point. This is all about potential, but it is so brilliant on so many levels that it makes me want to lean up on it right now. To be sure, there's a lot left to prove.
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Wine & Spirits
Sandra Tavares and Jorge Serodio Borges bought their Pintas Vineyard in 2003, a parcel in the hills above Pinhão, in the Vale Mendiz, where the 80-year-old mixed planting includes more than 30 vine varieties. Making Vintage Port from a small parcel is a challenge, as the conditions must cooperate in that exact spot. It’s why Noval’s Nacional, on a hill across the road, often shines in vintages that famed Port producers don’t declare. And it may be why this 2019 is the best Vintage Port from Pintas we’ve tasted on release. Its powerful tannic structure is completely wrapped in fat red currant and blackcurrant richness; the fruit seems oblivious to the fact that the tannins are unyielding, even as those two elements feel integrated and inseparable. A wine for the ages.
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Wine Spectator
Juicy and fresh, with a nicely rendered core that features a range of red and black fruit, while the finish takes on a muscular edge.
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James Suckling
This shows aromas of blackberries, coffee, black olives and wet earth. Full-bodied with grippy, chewy tannins. Sweet and viscous palate with a velvety mouthfeel and hints of dried herbs and spices to close.
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Located in the heart of the Douro Valley, Portugal’s best-known wine region, Wine & Soul spans several picturesque vineyards. This innovative yet rustic winery was founded nearly 10 years ago by Jorge Serôdio Borges and his wife Sandra Tavares da Silva, both of whom wished to channel their extensive experience into a winery that would showcase the traditional varieties and terroir of the Douro Valley on an international level. Initially, Wine & Soul consisted of a lone vineyard, Pintas, located in the Cima Corgo's prized Pinhão Valley. Throughout the years, it expanded to include additional properties, such as the magnificent Quinta da Manoella. Parcels of 80-year-old vines are tucked into terraces carved out by dynamite a century ago. Walls built from the displaced schist border the vines, preventing erosion and enhancing the idyllic landscape. Wine & Soul has received considerable critical praise for its character-driven wines, all of which represent the exceptional terroir of the Douro region. Natural farming is prioritized, and no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides are used. Irrigation is minimal and performed only by hand, and indigenous yeasts are used for almost all fermentation. Organic certification by Sativa is pending. Due to the steep grade of the slopes and the narrow width of the terraces, all grapes must be picked by hand. The fruit is foot-trodden in granite lagares, which yields fine, silky tannins since the process is so gentle on the grapes. The wines are all aged in French barriques.
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.