Yes.. it´s true unfortunately we arrive to the last bottle of the outstanding (in my lowly opinion) Over Forty Years Old from Quinta da Romaneira, 50% of the blend from 1935 with wonderful hints of cinnamon, dark chocolate, died fruits and coffee...
An enormous power, immense aftertaste and complexity.
Quinta da Romaneira was bought by AXA, and now they only make table wine and VP, the remaining grapes are used by Noval.
Maybe we keep it or we put it in auction
Wow. I guess all things will come to pass. I have enjoyed this particular Tawny many times at Vinologia. One of the best! Sorry to see that it is gone.
I think Romaneira was bought by a private consortium that includes Christian Seely (Head of all things wine and port at Axa) but not by Axa. I have visited the new winery and I am sure they do still have lots of old tawny and colheita ports still in barrel - but I may be wrong.
Christian Seely was the general director of Quinta do Noval and seven years ago he was invited to went in France (Bordeaux) for the post of general director of AXA Milésimes, he is a "terroir" seeker in order to get wonderfull VP and red wine, it´s the reason that Quinta da Romaneira it´s producing now only wine and VP.
Sometimes I go to the Douro Valley to visit/discover some new estates, but I haven´t visited Quinta da Romaneira ( facilities ) yet, but as Derek said they sitll have some barrels of wonderful tawnies and colheitas and therefore I´m shure that Christian Seely will keep these untill he realises that in the market it´s all sold out
Quinta da Romaneira was a "personal investment/effort" with others business partners first because like that they can use the grapes for Noval that it´s known for the VP quality by all and second he belives that in the Douro Valley there are some of the bests "terroirs" in the world...
I am looking forward to visiting Quinta da Romaneira in October. From what I understand, the grapes at Romaneira go into the Ports and Douro wines and are kept separate from Noval, but I will check the veracity of this statement, as I could be mistaken. They obviously can't go into anything that say Quinta do Noval, but could in theory go into Noval LB and products without the Quinta name on it, even Cedro do Noval. That said, I do not believe they ever do cross utilize the grapes.
I've checked and Romaneira is still making tawny's and colheita's. Although they are more or less out of the old colheita's they still have younger stocks waiting to be bottled, and some older stuff still left too. So don't worry, there will still be tawny's from this property. Although their main focus is on dry wines and Vintage Ports.
Andy Velebil wrote:I've checked and Romaneira is still making tawny's and colheita's. Although they are more or less out of the old colheita's they still have younger stocks waiting to be bottled, and some older stuff still left too. So don't worry, there will still be tawny's from this property. Although their main focus is on dry wines and Vintage Ports.
Good sleuthing, Andy! This means that I may get a sip or two of this "mythical" tawny one day, after all...