TN: 2007 Alvaro Castro Quinta da Pellada (Dão)

[Ronald Wortel]

I tasted Alvaro Castro's wines on wine fairs, but never got the chance to sit down and enjoy a full bottle of his wines. So I made sure a bottle of his 2007 Quinta da Pellada made its way to Oman.

Drank over two days, the first day in decanter for about 2 hours. Very dark and concentrated colour. Insanely young to look at. Some unintegrated oak on the nose, but also lovely blackcurrant, mineral notes and cedar wood. To taste it is medium bodied, again with blackcurrant, but also blackberry and redcurrant. Fairly acidic and an interesting asian spice mix on the finish, which is fairly tannic as well, but not overwhelmingly so. Apparently this wine has a high level of Touriga Nacional, but that doesn't really show at this point, if tasted blind I would have guessed a predominantly Baga wine. This was a great pairing with walnut/stilton crusted rack of lamb.

We poured the remainder back in the bottle and kept it in the fridge. The following day the nose was much more open, with sweeter red fruit, roses and a beefy note. Also sweeter to taste, and more smooth than on day one, with the acidity a bit better integrated. Otherwise very similar.

A very good wine that made me curious to try more of this producer. I'm guessing this will age very well, and I will be looking to buy more to cellar for a while.

[Niklas J]

Hi Ronald,

I had the 2000 Qta da Pellada half a year ago and it was pure pleasure! It had aged beautifully and didn't show any signs of falling apart. Now, I consider myself a Daoist and love the floral and elegant style of the region, so I could be a bit subjective, but Castro is most definitely amongst my very favourites in all of Portugal!

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Mine too!!!! The PaPe( elegance) + Carrocel (exuberance) are not to be missed...especially in 2007!

[Ronald Wortel]

PaPe is high on my list of wines to try.

I'm also a big fan of DaDo/DoDa, the wine he makes together with Dirk.