Quinta Do Noval declareert Vintage 2011 (van de blog van Christian Seely)

2011 Vintage Port

I am in the Douro right now, where the weather is fine and sunny and spirits are high. On Monday, the Institute of Masters of Wine organised a fantastic tasting in London of all the declared 2011 Vintage Ports, which confirmed that we have a great Vintage on our hands.

At Noval, we have declared the Quinta do Noval Vintage 2011, and also, for the first time since the 2003, the Quinta do Noval Vintage Nacional, which is of course a thrilling event. At Romaneira, we have also declared Quinta da Romaneira Vintage 2011.

 

I was here a couple of weeks ago finalising the blends with António Agrellos, and we took some pictures in the tasting room. As they show, we were feeling rather cheerful about the wines. It is always a great moment when you know that you have an outstanding Port wine that you can declare as a Vintage Port, and at Noval it is a rare and exciting event to be able to declare the Nacional as well. There have been a few blog posts about the Nacional over the past few months, following the big tasting we did in New York, and I also wrote a while ago about the tasting of the Nacional 94 with the Wine Spectator, also in New York. So no need to go into detail today about what the Nacional is or what makes it special. But it is worth pointing out that the 2011 is the first time we have wanted to declare a Nacional since 2003, so it is an exciting event. A lot of people asked me at the time of the 2007 Vintage declaration why there was no Nacional 2007. The answer is that I resolved when I first started working at Noval (luckily for me the 94 was my first vintage) that we would never declare a Nacional that was not clearly outstanding. The wine that came from the Nacional parcel in 2007 was very good but not outstanding, and so we did not declare it. We had no such doubts about the 2011.

 

Here I am with António in the tasting room at Noval with Ausenda Matos, the oenologue of Noval.

And these next two pictures give an idea of how cheerful we were feeling about the wines we were tasting. I love the wines from 2011, and now having tasted the wines from our neighbours and friends in the Douro at the IMW tasting, I am sure that it will go down as a great historic Port Vintage.


I think we are tasting the Nacional in this picture. António and I have together been responsible for the 94, 96, 97, 2000, 2003 Nacionals. We were beginning rather to miss it, and it is wonderful to have again a great Nacional declaration in our hands.

The Quinta do Noval Vintage is quite lovely, I think one of the best ever, and I am sure that the Quinta da Romaneira Vintage 2011, of which we made only 700 cases is in fact the best Romaneira ever. My tasting notes are probably not impartial enough, but I give them here just for the record. Fortunately I am not a journalist or I would not last long, but I just give you in note form the impressions these wines made on me.

Quinta da Romaneira Vintage 2011

Intense bright fresh seductive fruit. Great elegance and harmony. Complex profound aromas. Something wild about it, typical of Romaneira.

Quinta do Noval Vintage 2011

Very seductive. Lovely fresh floral notes on the nose, many delicate complex aromas. Violets. Wonderful purity and fresh precision of fruit. Intense concentration, but delicate at the same time. Fine long tannins.

Quinta do Noval Vintage Nacional 2011

Very strong distinctive personality. Tannins powerful reserved and fine. Very intense long and concentrated fruits, explosive in the mouth, balanced and with great freshness. Brooding presence.

But don’t take my word for it. Read what the journalists will say, or better still, buy some.

Finally, one photograph of António Agrellos, which I think gives an idea of the immense intelligence and artistic flair that he has brought to bear on the making and blending of the great wines of Noval over the past 20 years. I tend to travel round the world and do the talking, and maybe get some of the credit for these wines, but he is in fact the person who makes them, and I am very lucky to have the pleasure of working with António, both at Noval and at Romaneira, and to have been able to offer to the world as a result a few exceptional Vintage Ports over the past two decades, of which I think the 2011 may be one of the greatest.

 

 

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