Wine & Spirits - Fall 2022 - 78

PORTUGAL | DOURO
PORTUGAL | PORTO
Wine & Soul
Two talented winemakers and ancient estate vineyards form this
marriage of wine and Douro soul.
JORGE SERODIO BORGES
& SaNDRa TaVaRES
Sandra TavareS da Silva waS a winemaking
intern at Vale D. Maria in the Douro
when she met Jorge Serôdio Borges, who was
making wine at Niepoort. Two years later, in
2001, they were married and busy founding
their own project. It's true they both came
from families with vineyards-Sandra's parents
at the Quinta do Chocapalha, just north
of Lisbon, where she continues to make the
wine, and Jorge's with quintas in the Douro,
including Manoella, with its 150 acres in
the Pinhão Valley, which the couple would
take over in 2009. But first they found a sixacre
parcel of 80-year-old vines in the Vale
Mendiz, close to their equally small cellar.
Working with a field blend of more than 40
varieties, the two produce a richly complex
and concentrated table wine they named for
their dog, Pintas. They also make Vintage
Port from the site, and though the historic
Port firms have the advantage of being able
to blend their Vintage lots from a range of
top sites, the Pintas 2019, from its small, single
parcel, is a wine that can stand with the
classics of the Douro. -J.G.
2019 Porto Pintas Vintage ($115, 95 points)
From a singular, small, old-vine parcel, this is the
best Pintas Vintage 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.
FOUNDED:
2001
CO-OWNERS/
WINEMAKERS:
Sandra Tavares da
Silva & Jorge Serôdio
Borges
VITICULTURIST:
Álvaro Martinho
ACRES OWNED:
225, 87.5 planted
ANNUAL PRODUCTION:
9,000 cases
ESTATE GROWN:
90%
IMPORTER:
Winebow, NY
78
2019 Douro Quinta da Manoella Vinhas Velhas
($120, 93 points) Jorge Serôdio Borges's
family purchased this vineyard in 1838; he and
Sandra Tavares have renovated its centenary
vines-the most dominant variety, at seven percent,
is tinta francisca. This field blend produces
one of the most distinctive reds in the Douro, its
firm acidity expressed in a breath of mineral tannins
that powers through the rich drape of new
oak. The buzz of schist, black-cherry skins and
raspberry-seed bitterness all combine in a lasting,
layered flavor, needing years to unpack.
2020 Douro Manoella Branco ($25, 93
points) This wine's dynamic flavors gain their
freshness from a north-facing granite hillside, a
field blend of vines that delivers scents of coriander,
white peach, white cherry and green mango.
Fermented in stainless steel, where it rests on
the lees for six months, this fragrant, bone-dry
white's mineral ties to the soil last through the
layers of fruit.
WINE & SPIR IT S
F all 202 2
W & J Graham's
Charles Symington contrasts the velvet sheen of Graham's richly fruited
Vintage wines with a collection of cool, zesty Tawnies.
CHaRlES SYMINGTON
andrew JameS SymingTon had worked for
Graham's in the 1880s, when he first came
to Porto. Ninety years later, his grandson,
James Symington, made the 1970 Graham's
Vintage, the first under his family's stewardship
of the brand. Encouraged by that 1970
Vintage and by the A-rated vineyard behind
it-the Quinta dos Malvedos-Graham's
quickly became the Symington family's flagship.
While Graham's Vintage wines define
the firm's rich, fruit-driven style, its range of
bright and savory Tawnies earned this Top
100 award. Stocks of single-harvest wines
that the Graham family had cellared go
back to 1935, while the oldest stocks at the
lodge date to 1882-two casks purchased
by Andrew James in the 1920s. Winemaker
Charles Symington presents his Tawnies in
stout apothecary bottles and keeps a certain
amount of stock back for later releases. Currently,
the Symingtons are offering limited
editions of eleven Colheita wines-the oldest
on offer is a 1940, which earned 95 points
when we tasted it in 2019. These Colheitas
present a different kind of opportunity for
collectors than Vintage: Once you open
them, you can enjoy comparing them, and
sharing them, for months, as they keep well
in the fridge. -J.G.
Porto Aged 20 Years Tawny Port ($69, 93
points) Fourth-generation winemaker Charles
Symington includes some very old stock in this
blend, creating a wine that's earthy rather than
fruity-in cool cellar tones that layer dark mushroom
over hints of papaya. It lasts with intriguing
complexity, to match umami-rich foods.
FOUNDED:
1820
WINEMAKER/
VITICULTURIST:
Charles Symington
OWNER:
Symington Family
Estates
ACRES OWNED:
1,270; 491 planted
ANNUAL PRODUCTION:
264,000 cases
ESTATE GROWN:
100%
IMPORTER:
Premium Port Wines,
San Francisco, CA
Porto Aged 30 Years Tawny Port ($143, 93
points) Fully mature, the 30-year blend offers
cool spicy satisfaction. Its fruit flavors span the
marmalade spectrum, from candied orange zest
to kumquats with their peels. Toasty and bright,
apricot-rich, this wine's bittersweet finish will
match a savory nut tart.
1974 Porto Single Harvest Tawny Port ($575,
93 points) On first approach, this wine may
appear fully mature in its orange marmalade
richness, zesty structure and length. But gradually
it reveals a cool tension, a current running
underneath the flavors, bringing pale cranberry
notes out of the vanilla scent of oak. Then, as it
opens over the course of several days, scents of
rose hips and spring grasses come to the fore-
the wine still charged after 47 years.
Wine & Spirits - Fall 2022

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