| 17.0 / 20 |
Region: Douro
Country: Portugal
This is the first vintage for a joint venture between the Roquette family from Quinta do Crasto and the Cazes family, from Château Lynch-Bages in Bordeaux. And a very impressive release it is.
Very dark ruby with some violet tinges, the bouquet is very full, very intense with red fruits, a lot of flowers and an oaky background that adds to the complexity of the whole. The bouquet is so rich that I actually changed the glass while tasting this, using a Bordeaux glass in order to give it more space to breathe - it enhanced the wine so I strongly suggest you use larger glasses for this. As times moves on, some toast/coffee notes appear as well as some dried plums and raisins.
In the mouth, this shows a great deal of structure and complexity. It's a full bodied wine, yet it is not heavy in any sense. Polished and silky tannins give it structure and presence, but they are very well integrated so the wine does note feel astringent at all. Nice, balanced acidity, just the enough amount of red fruits going around woven together with some oaky notes make up a really interesting, complex and elegant taste. Strong and long persistence finishes up the taste.
This has a relatively low price tag (around 17€ here in Portugal), making this a real bargain that you should hunt down as soon as possible. The only downside to this is the high alcohol mark (15º). It's really well integrated and does not show during the taste, but a half point or a point less would make this even better.
Tasted on 2011-05-30
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