The 2016 For the Love Of Port Harvest Tour (PHT) marked the 10th Anniversary of my first trip to Portugal’s Douro Valley. While I’ve visited so many properties, tried so many wines, and developed many friendships in the Douro and the Port wine trade, I still marvel at how there is something new to discover every time I go.
I took my first trip to Porto and the Douro Valley in 2006 on one of the first full Port Harvest Tours. For many who have been on the tours, or to Porto and the Douro Valley, it likely comes as no surprise that by the end of that first visit, Portugal had won my heart. Everything about that trip was memorable – the group was an incredibly fun and knowledgeable group of Port wine lovers like myself; the tour was led by Roy Hersh, who leveraged his friendships and contacts in the Port wine trade to create a unique and unforgettable experience for us; and every one of the wines – the young, the old, the whites, tawnies and rubies – all amounted to what seemed like a revelatory and exponential expansion of my known wine universe. To top it all off, the people we spent time with and got to know exhibited a passion for their craft but remained incredibly approachable and humble about what they did. It is what I imagine Napa may have been like back in the 1970s.
The Port Harvest Tour became a regular thing for me – managing nine trips in ten years – and it was remarkable that on every single tour I learned something unexpected, visited a Quinta that I had never been to, and of course, always managed to see some old friends that I’d met along the way. For the 2016 Port Harvest Tour, I was curious to see if the magic would remain.
Day 1 – Sunday
The FTLOP PHT officially started on Sunday afternoon, and while I had planned to arrive in Porto on Saturday, a missed connection in Madrid meant arriving into Francisco Sa Carneira (OPO) Airport in Porto mid-morning on Sunday. I made my way to the Hotel Teatro (now called the PortoBay Hotel) , to check in and drop off my luggage and Vingarde Valise wine suitcase. Several of us who have been on multiple Harvest Tours usually like to meet up and get the week started off with some pre-tour tastings, so I connected with the group to find out where they were and headed over to lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia to begin the adventures.
Sogevinus Tasting Room
The first stop was the Sogevinus Tasting Room in Vila Nova de Gaia. Sogevinus is the parent company for many wine brands, including Kopke, Burmester, Cálem, and Barros. The Burmester Tasting Room is in an old, blue-tiled building facing the Douro River, and is a great place to taste many of the Sogevinus Port brands.
When I entered, I greeted the other PHT participants and sat down to have my first taste of Port on the trip. We sipped through our Ports while catching up with each other and jotting down a few tasting notes.
Note: I’ve captured my tasting notes (TNs) from each visit/event as a “flight.” I typically don’t write TNs for table wines consumed at lunch or dinner, unless they are of note.
2003 Kopke White Colheita Port – Golden straw in color. Honeysuckle and some tropical fruit on the nose. Peach and apricot on the palate. A nice touch of spice underneath on the well-balanced finish. 93 points. 9/18/2016
2011 Burmester Late Bottled Vintage Port – Bottled 2016. Medium purple in color with lightening on the edges. Floral with a touch of vegetative notes on the nose. Intense mouthfeel and flavor of grape hard candies. Long finish. Needs some time to integrate but could be an interesting LBV. 89 points. 9/18/2016
Cálem 20 Year Old Tawny Port – Bottled in 2016. Orange-brown in color. Good clarity. Cedar and orange peel on the nose. Very unctuous mouthfeel. Caramel and orange spice on the palate. Good acidity and a long finish. 91 points. 9/18/2016
Burmester 30 Year Old Tawny Port – Bottled in 2016. Light amber in color. Crème Brule and orange marmalade and cedar on the nose. Lighter bodied. Orange spice tea on the palate. Waves of maple on the mid-palate. A touch of nuts on the finish. 88 points. 9/18/2016
1964 Barros Colheita Port – Bottled in 2016. Light amber brown in color. Herbs and spice on the nose. The entry appears like orange peel (bitterness) but resolves on the mid-palate into candied oranges (sweetness). Full-bodied and unctuous, with a clean floral profile and balanced acidity on the long finish. 93 points. 9/18/2016
Cockburn’s Lodge
We next headed over the Cockburn Lodge, (pronounced like “Co-burn”) where we tasted through a wide range of Cockburn’s more recent wines, including the 2011 VP.
The Cockburn’s Lodge bills itself as “the largest wooden Port cellar in the historical area of Vila Nova de Gaia,” and when you walk in you can see it might be true. There are barrels of all shapes and sizes throughout the building, and they employ a full-time team of coopers to keep these ancient barrels maintained. The Lodge is slightly up the hill from a lot of the other lodges by the Douro River, but that location has likely helped them to escape some of the historic floods that have impacted lodges closer to the water’s edge.
The Cockburn Family first set up shop in Porto in 1815, when Scotsman Robert Cockburn returned to Portugal after visiting the country while fighting under Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars. Over the next two centuries, Cockburn’s produced Ports under a variety of ownerships, with Beam Global Spirits & Wine eventually acquiring the company. In 2006, Symington Family Estates acquired the vineyards and wineries from Beam, and then acquired the remaining ownership and global distribution of the Cockburn’s brand from Beam in 2010.
Since we were drop-in visitors to the lodge and didn’t have an appointment, we acquainted ourselves with their standard tasting offerings, and we settled on “They Symington’s Tasting” which provided a broad range of styles of Port.
Cockburn Fine White Port – Very light straw in color. Light green apple and tropical notes. Tropical and light citrus on the palate. Medium-long finish with some slight spirit on the finish. This was a little sweeter in character that I was expecting, but a solid white. 88 points. 9/18/2016
Cockburn Special Reserve Port – Medium purple in color, with lightening on the very edges. Primary dark fruit on the nose with some underlying herbal notes. Massive tannins and body. Blueberry and mocha notes on the palate. 90 points. 9/18/2016
2009 Cockburn Late Bottled Vintage Port – Dark, opaque purple in the center, with lightening on the very edges. Primary dark fruit on the nose with some underlying herbal notes. Massive tannins and body. Blueberry and mocha notes on the palate. 90 points. 9/18/2016
2003 Cockburn Vintage Port – Dark, opaque purple in color. Blueberry and some grape notes on the nose. Full-bodied with some anise and herbal notes. Long Finish. 90 points. 9/18/2016
2007 Cockburn Vintage Quinta dos Canais Vintage Port – Impenetrable dark purple in color. Violets on the nose. Red fruits on the palate. Medium-full bodied. Good balance. Nice tannins on the finish. 92 points. 9/18/2016
Cockburn 10 Year Old Tawny Port – Amber orange in color. Dark, clear appearance. Subtle cigar box and orange peel on the nose. Full-bodied, subtle orange and some light spirit. Slight nuttiness on the finish. Balanced, elegant wine. 91 points. 9/18/2016
Cockburn 20 Year Old Tawny Port – Light amber-orange in color. Subtle dusty leather nose. Medium body. Some slight VA notes, but not a fault. Orange candies on the palate. 89 points. 9/18/2016
2011 Cockburn Vintage Port – Impenetrable purple. Dark fruit on the nose. Intense blueberry. Full-bodied on the palate but short finish. 91 points. 9/18/2016
Hotel Teatro
After some tasting some nice Ports and getting caught up with each other, we headed back to the Hotel Teatro for the official kick-off for the 2016 FLTOP Port Harvest Tour!
We have stayed at the Hotel Teatro many times on our tours. The 74-room hotel was built on the site of the former Baquet Theatre, and as such carries the “theatre” theme throughout the property with copious theatre-like velvet curtains and large photo murals of the original theatre. As we assembled in the lobby, most of the faces were familiar from other harvest tours or wine groups I am involved with. There were a few new faces, though, so we went around, did introductions, and Roy laid out the plans for the week. With an air of excitement for our first official visit of the tour, we headed out and boarded our mini-bus for our first destination.
Quinta de Linhares
Our first and only official visit on the Port Harvest Tour for Day 1 was Agri-Roncão’s Quinta de Linhares in the Vinho Verde region, about an hour’s drive from Porto. This Quinta is known mostly for its white table wines, and their vineyards are dominated primarily with the white grape varietals of Loureiro, Avesso, Azal, and Arinto. Agri-Roncão has a second property, Quinta da Levandeira do Roncão in the Douro Valley, where they produce Ports under the DR Port brand.
We arrived at Quinta de Linhares and were greeted by Elisabete Almeida, their Export Manager, who would be our host for the day. Joining her was Quinta de Linhares Winemaker António Sousa. The first thing we noticed was the awesome sign with the Quinta name proudly displayed over the top of one of the Spanish tile buildings. It really reminded me of the “Fly Delta” sign I always used to see leaving Atlanta’s airport.
Elisabete gave us an introduction to Agri-Roncão and Quinta de Linhares and told us a little history of the property – much of which I wish I would have written down while she was talking. She then took us through the production facility, which was a mix of old stone buildings and stainless-steel tanks. I’ll admit it was about what I expected from a white wine producer – you don’t age white wine in dark, dusty cellars with ancient wood casks like many Port producers, but I still had the feeling that it honored the old traditions while producing great white wines using modern winemaking approaches.
In full transparency, I’m a Port Guy, and while I have been to “non-Port” producing wine regions in Portugal before (and like a lot of non-Port Portuguese wines), this visit put Vinho Verde on the map for me. When I heard about the many white grape varietals they specialize in at Quinta de Linhares, I really couldn’t wait to get to the tasting. As if on cue, Winemaker Antonia Sousa announced that it was time for us to head to the tasting room.
The tasting room was in one of the old stone buildings with large open windows that let in the Portuguese sunlight. We sat at the long wooden table and proceeded to taste through all of their major styles of white wines.
2015 Quinta de Linhares Arinto Vinho Verde – Icewater in color. Peach and tropical fruits on the nose. Grapefruit on the palate. Crisp acidity, and unctuous sweetness on the palate. Medium body and fresh finish 91 points. 9/18/2016
2015 Quinta de Linhares Loureiro Vinho Verde – Very light yellow in color. Tropical fruits on the nose. Intense pineapple and tropical fruit on the palate. Unctuous mouthfeel, with bright acidity on the long finish. 90 points. 9/18/2016
2015 Quinta de Linhares Avesso Vinho Verde – Pale, clear yellow in color. Clean, subtle nose. Full-bodied. Lemon notes and buttery texture on the palate. A touch of salinity as well. Crisp, well-balanced acidity and medium-long finish. 92 points. 9/18/2016
2015 Quinta de Linhares Azal Vinho Verde – Very clear, light yellow in color. Citrus with hints of lime on the nose. Crisp acidity and lime on the palate. Very bright acidity. 90 points. 9/18/2016
2015 Quinta de Linhares Colheita Selecionada – Pale yellow in color. Made from Trajadura, Loureiro and Avesso grapes. Citrus notes with some floral components on the nose. Unctuous, full mouthfeel with hints of honeysuckle and tropical fruit on the palate. 93 points. 9/18/2016
2015 Quinta de Linhares Vinho Verde Rosé – Salmon pink in color. Light red fruit notes on the nose with some floral notes underneath. Balanced sugar and acidity with a full body. Hints of strawberry on the long finish. 90 points. 9/18/2016
2013 Quinta de Linhares Avesso Vinho Verde Reserva – This wine has been aged 1.5 years in neutral oak barrels. It will be released in a few months. Pale yellow in color. Banana and cream on the nose. Full-bodied, with a creamy texture. Tropical fruits on the palate. 92 points. 9/18/2016
Quinta de Linhares Sparkling, N/R
2015 Quinta de Linhares Vinhão Vinho Verde Tinto Red – Dark purple in color. This is a “food wine.” Burnt note and graham crackers on the nose. Surprising acidity that dries the palate with each sip, but it has few tannins so that feeling doesn’t stay. A palate-cleansing wine to drink between courses. Only people from Vinho Verde region apparently drink this. NR 9/18/2016
DR 10 Year Old Tawny Port – Subtle pine resin and spice on the nose. Fully bodied. Some spirit on the palate with some burnt sugar notes. Very long finish. NR 9/18/2016
After the tasting was completed, we took advantage of the beautiful Fall evening and adjourned to the patio, where we had appetizers, more wine (shocking, I know), and tables set for dinner. It was such a pleasant evening talking with Antonio and Elisabete and enjoying the wonderful Portuguese meal, some of the property’s wonderful white wines, and just relaxing and soaking the experience all in.
