For The Love Of Port

Posted: **Sun Mar 18, 2018 7:50 pm**

Frederick Blais wrote:Douro got extented to the extent of the shist geoligical area. Is Douro Superior worth including, totally! Same as Baixo Corgo. In the end, it always fall down to knowing your viticulture. Remember that Douro and Port has always been about this land of contrast and unlimited micro climate. So you can blend all this and make an amazing and complex wine called Port.

If you do the same viticulture management in Baixo Corgo as you do in Douro Superior, it is a mistake.
If you want to do jammy wines and Port in Douro Superior, it is much easier than in Baixo Corgo.

But it is still possible to make super fresh and classic wines/Port from Douro Superior. Vargellas for example is always super fresh while Vesusio next door is more jammier. Some of the best whites vineyards come from 500+ meters vineyards in Douro Superior.

Same goes for Baixo Corgo, you can plant a ton of Touriga Nacional, harvest later, and do Douro Superior style of wines... Yet still you can make some fresh and classic style Port and wines.

Not everything has to be Vintage quality stuff. You don't want that type of vineyards to make Tawnys or dry wines. So again it comes down to knowing your viticulture, chosing the best location and vineyards for the style of wines/port you want to make. Douro has everythning for everyone. Exempting a sub-region because it is too easy to make the style of wine or Port you don't want to drink is not a solution in my opinion. In the end, the market asked for this and vast majority of producers are making wines for the market before wines that they like or wines that respect traditions.

The bolded part is my pet peeve. So many articles about wine, from wine reviewers and people in general (especially wine-nerds like us) forget that the vast majority of what is made in any wine region is "village-level" quality at best and only a small amount is top-end quality. The market for higher priced fine wines is quite small in the overall scheme of things. So while it would be nice to only have a small region to make only the best wines from, that just isn't realistic by any stretch of the imagination.

Putting what I just said aside, what makes the Douro great is that it's so spread out it creates diversity in wines, as Fred pointed out. I don't want to drink the same wines from the same small area where they are all homogeneous. I like that diversity in the wines and Ports of the Douro because they come from such vastly different micro-climates.

Now back to the 2017 harvest.....it seems at least a couple producers are quite pleased this early on so far. It was by historical accounts a one-off vintage, given how early it was. So what's the general overall feel for the vintage when it comes to Port and the dry wines?

Posted: **Mon Mar 19, 2018 9:27 am**

Glenn E. wrote:
Tom Archer wrote:The boundaries of the sub regions also seem to vary depending on which map you look at; whilst most put Vargellas in the Superior, this one puts it in the Cima Corgo:
http://www.decanter.com/features/the-di ... ir-245620/
Vargellas is in the Douro Superior. Even allowing for some artistic misrepresentation, that map is horribly wrong. Vargellas is significantly east of where it is located on that map. What that map shows as Vargellas is closer to Quevedo's Vale d'Agodinho.

I've always thought of Vargellas as in the Superior. And while I do agree with Glenn that the "7" on the map for Vargellas is too far west, I can see the argument that Vargellas is in the Cima Corgo.

Here's another map, that you can click on for a slightly bigger version:
http://www.vinetowinecircle.com/en/regions/duriense/
It appears to me that the dividing line on the south side of the river is coincident with the district line between Viseu and Guarda. And Vargellas is west of that line. Here's the train station, and you can zoom out to see the quinta and district dividing line.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Varge ... d-7.315471

Posted: **Mon Mar 19, 2018 6:07 pm**

Eric Menchen wrote:
Glenn E. wrote:
Tom Archer wrote:The boundaries of the sub regions also seem to vary depending on which map you look at; whilst most put Vargellas in the Superior, this one puts it in the Cima Corgo:
http://www.decanter.com/features/the-di ... ir-245620/
Vargellas is in the Douro Superior. Even allowing for some artistic misrepresentation, that map is horribly wrong. Vargellas is significantly east of where it is located on that map. What that map shows as Vargellas is closer to Quevedo's Vale d'Agodinho.
I've always thought of Vargellas as in the Superior. And while I do agree with Glenn that the "7" on the map for Vargellas is too far west, I can see the argument that Vargellas is in the Cima Corgo.

Here's another map, that you can click on for a slightly bigger version:
http://www.vinetowinecircle.com/en/regions/duriense/
It appears to me that the dividing line on the south side of the river is coincident with the district line between Viseu and Guarda. And Vargellas is west of that line. Here's the train station, and you can zoom out to see the quinta and district dividing line.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Varge ... d-7.315471

As Tom said, the boundaries of the areas seem to vary depending on which map you're looking at. There are maps that put the "island" of Douro that's surrounded by non-Douro north of the river in both the Douro Superior and the Cima Corgo.

Quinta da Ferradosa, which is West of Vargellas and on the north bank, claims to be in the Douro Superior. And while I didn't see a claim made on Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas site, several other sites (dourovalley.eu, wineanorak.com, kobrandwineandspirits.com, wine.com) all state that it is in the Douro Superior.

For The Love Of Port

2017 and the harvest

Re: 2017 and the harvest

Re: 2017 and the harvest

Re: 2017 and the harvest