TN: 2007 Quinta do Crasto Old Vine Reserva Douro

[Andy Velebil]

Decanted about 3 hours at time of note. The color has definitely faded since it's release but it hasn't taken on any bricking yet. Wet stone and anise nose. Very soft bodied on the palate, quite the change from its youthful bold days. Yet it still possesses that pure fruit with some secondary flavors of earthiness behind it finally starting to show. Tannins are mostly resolved. The finish though is still quite long with good acidity, licorice, some saddle leather and that vibrant red fruit. While you could hold this for longer I am not convinced that would make it better. IMO, I think this is in a really good spot right now and further aging may cause it to lose some of that pureness it still is hanging onto. As many Douro wine lovers have said, these Reserva's are perfect to enjoy while their bigger brother and sister wines, Vinha da Ponte and Maria Teresa, continue to mature in the cellar.
92 Points

[Roy Hersh]

I had a 2009 Crasto Reserva a couple of weeks ago and it had not lost much color at all. I am going to open a 2007 tomorrow night, oops, I can't. Ok Saturday night. I look forward to see if I have similar results. Looking forward to it. Thanks for the suggestion on the decant time. In retrospect now, would you only go 2 hours of decanting to keep more of the freshness, Andy?

[Andy Velebil]

I had a 2009 Crasto Reserva a couple of weeks ago and it had not lost much color at all. I am going to open a 2007 tomorrow night, oops, I can't. Ok Saturday night. I look forward to see if I have similar results. Looking forward to it. Thanks for the suggestion on the decant time. In retrospect now, would you only go 2 hours of decanting to keep more of the freshness, Andy?

I've had bottle variations in this vintage, more so than any other. I started trying about an hour in, hour 3 at note time. There wasn't much change between hour 2 and 3, so some point around there should be a good decant time.


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[Rune EG]

This is very interesting, as Crasto Reserva is the wine that we have most of in our cellar.
I have built up a small "library" of Crasto Reserva with minimum two bottles of each vintage as from 2007.
At the FTLOP party in Seattle-area July 2015 we had Crasto Reserva three times:
2005 95 pts (10 yrs at the time), 2002 86 pts (13 yrs at the time) and again 2005 94 pts (10 yrs at the time).

Lately we have concentrated our drinking of Crasto Reserva on the 2009-vintage, as we find it to be in excellent condition.
The 2007 is now 11 yrs and Andy is reducing the scores. Is this an indication that Crasto Reserva is peaking at 9-11 yrs?
It will be very interesting to hear Roy's evaluation of the 2007 after it has been consumed.

[Andy Velebil]

This is very interesting, as Crasto Reserva is the wine that we have most of in our cellar.
I have built up a small "library" of Crasto Reserva with minimum two bottles of each vintage as from 2007.
At the FTLOP party in Seattle-area July 2015 we had Crasto Reserva three times:
2005 95 pts (10 yrs at the time), 2002 86 pts (13 yrs at the time) and again 2005 94 pts (10 yrs at the time).

Lately we have concentrated our drinking of Crasto Reserva on the 2009-vintage, as we find it to be in excellent condition.
The 2007 is now 11 yrs and Andy is reducing the scores. Is this an indication that Crasto Reserva is peaking at 9-11 yrs?
It will be very interesting to hear Roy's evaluation of the 2007 after it has been consumed.

I too own a lot of Crasto and buy it every year. Quite sure it's just this vintage as I've not had this experience with any other vintage of Reserva or any other upper end wine from Crasto from this vintage.


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