Our next visitation was to Quinta de la Rosa.  We had a fine visit with Tim and Patricia Bergvist who opened their Douro home to us.  Unfortunately Sophia Bergqvist was unable to join us.  We had some refreshments on their lovely veranda overlooking the Douro River and had a nice relaxing glass of Port Tonic.  We also were given several entry level Ports to try and a 1999 LBV (filtered) and 2007 Vintage Port.  As much as I enjoy their Reserve level table wines, I have not found their Ports to be impressive.  I do purchase their DOC wines and the 2004 and 2005 Reserva reds are pretty spectacular.

Dinner was delicious and Tim and Patricia were very fine hosts.  Sadly not a mid-level or Reserva was to be tasted and we only were served some basic and uninspired table wines as Tim told us that the cellar master had left for the day.  Our group was very polite about this oversight, but hopefully this was unintentional.

We greeted the next day with a brand new start and finally had the opportunity to meet with Tiago Alves de Sousa, which was a great privilege and unfortunately we did not get to meet his father, Domingo but I am sure we will next time.  For visitors to the Douro it is hard to miss the big ALVES DE SOUSA signs splayed across their prominent riverfront vineyard.  I have wanted to visit this property for a long time and was very pleased to be able to bring a group to experience the grandeur of this property along with the great Douro wines they make.

We tasted a number of their Quinta de Gaivosa, Alves de Sousa and Val da Raposa brands.  I was especially enamored with the 2009 Quinta da Gaivosa Branco Reserva, one of the best whilte wines I tasted during the entire Tour.   They also make Port and we had an excellent bottling of 2003 LBV later on in the trip.

Up river to the Douro superior we went.  It was well worth the trip as we met with Oscar Quevedo and a brief hello with his wonderful sister Claudia (the Quevedo winemaker).  We spent hours with Oscar, touring the vineyard with lots of plump, ripe grapes still on the vine.  He allowed us to taste some outstanding LBV, Tawny/Colheita and Vintage Ports directly from barrels which was a ton of fun and the first time we had that experience so far, in the trip.  These were pretty outstanding and I'd be happy to drink these even at this very early stage as the quality was mighty impressive.

We then headed upstairs after a tour of the Quinta and production facilities, for a most enthralling tasting of Port wines.  Our guests really enjoyed the trio of blind wines which Oscar served to see if we could tell which two of the three were LBVs and if we could guess the vintages of those two and the Vintage Port.  I got two of three correctly and only guessed the vintage of the 2008 cask sample ... not a difficult feat given its youthful character.

We then had several other Ports before heading to dinner.  During our prandial adventure, Oscar showed us the latest lineup of cask samples of his wines and the up and coming cask sample of "Claudia's wine" a fun red wine from 2009  that will be released some time in 2011.  Our last wine of the visit was the captivating 1975 Colheita which was a great way to end the day.

We thanked Oscar and then had a long ride ahead to get back to Sabrosa where we were staying at Quinta do Portal's Casa da Pipas.