TN: 2004 Ramos Pinto Duas Quintas Reserva Especial Douro

[Andy Velebil]

Fired up a juicy Prime Rib Eye steak last night and cracked this open to enjoy with it. I'll preface this by saying I took no formal notes as it's been a long week and I really just wanted to unwind and relax with dinner and the TV. That said, plenty of restrained fruit, nice acidity, and a massive dose of tannins. For those familiar, think of a very young Dunn wine (from Napa). I am not sure at this point, and not having a lot of experience with various vintages of this, how this will continue to age. It will either come together at some point in the future or the tannins will continue to outpace the fruit and this will become seriously out of balance. While I loved the underlying body, those massive tannins made it tough to enjoy overall. I'm not sure where to score this as without the tannin issue I'd be around a 92-93, with the tannin issue I'm around 88-89 right now. I guess time will tell.

[Brian C.]

I went to Cellar Tracker and took a look at the notes there, also. It seems like a recurring theme in the notes, that a wave of lower ratings happen after a certain point. I did see that one of the much earlier vintages had some favorable recent notes, though. Did you decant this at all?

The other recurring theme I saw in the notes at that site was that it wasn't worth the $30 that many paid. I have only had the regular bottling from this producer, can't remember when, and it didn't excite me very much. I don't remember trying the Reserva bottling.

[Andy Velebil]

Decanted about 45 minutes and consumed over about roughly 4 hours. It only got more tannic with time.

[Brian C.]

Is this the first instance of such a pattern of shutting down that you've seen in Douro reds? I'd have to wonder which Douro grapes do the most shutting down, and what is in the blend for this particular wine. It's kind of interesting because we don't have a long history from which to draw for these events.

[Andy Velebil]

I"m not sure this is in a shut down phase or not as I've had much experience with this wine before. I think Douro wines are still too new, with producers still tweaking how they make it, to come up with a general statement like we often do with Port (and even that may be changing with newer VP's). Though it may be a bit easier with single varietal wines to see a more common pattern emerging. What that may be I'm not sure but would love to find out.