For The Love Of Port

2000 Douro Prats & Symington Chryseia

Nice Ruby color with brown edges showing the beginning of the aging.
On the nose showed real ripe fruit, scents of violets and a huge amount of coffee.
Noble tannins are the issue here, well integrated but firm. Real elegant wine with a long finish. Beautiful wine
Some people said to me that this was not good. I think this is really a wine that needs great storage and this was the case as it passed all life in cellar.
93/100pts

Brought back one bottle from Symington's lodges and decided it was time to try this bottle.

The color is clear ruby, it took around 1,5 hours for the nose to really develop with ripe plums, licorice and tobacco leaf with a minty touch at the end. On the palate, the tannins are integrated, the acidity is sharp, a thad too much maybe. If the nose is quite complex, the palate is still in one block of ripe wild young berries leading to a finish of medium length on ripe plums flavours with licorice. Give this wine a few years, my bet is that is will develop more complexity on the palate, but again, so many Douro wines with similar profile do not, That's my fear with this region and especially the price they ask for "top" wines. At this stage of life, it reminds me of a more tamed Fojo style. 16.5/20

Fred,
I've never been a huge fan of the Chryseia line. It just doesn't have the distinc Douro'ness to it...it's definitely more "new-world" in style that drinks well younger...so I'm not so sure this will hold up well in the years to come either.

Andy Velebil wrote:Fred,
I've never been a huge fan of the Chryseia line. It just doesn't have the distinc Douro'ness to it...it's definitely more "new-world" in style that drinks well younger...so I'm not so sure this will hold up well in the years to come either.

I tend to agree with Andy on this one. I bought a six-pack on release and drank my last bottle not to long ago. Each successive bottle was, in general, less enjoyable than the previous. I do indeed wonder how these wines will age and what their "shutting down" profiles will be like.

Marco brings up a good point about what their shutting down cycles will be like. For Vintage Ports a good rule of thumb is about the seven year mark they start to close up, but there isn't enough history yet to track these Douro wines. But they are the same grapes, even though they are produced differently so I would guess there will be some point that they do shut down. Course, I am talking about the top wines that are ment to see some age to them. Not the inexpensive wines designed to be consumed in the first couple years after release.

The question of Douro wines shutting down is something I have been thinking about for the past couple years. I really havn't heard anyone give a good answer, as most say that these newer Douro wines just havn't been produced long enough yet to predict. I guess time will tell, but I'd like to hear from more people or the producers about this.

Each successive bottle was, in general, less enjoyable than the previous.

Marco, You hit the nail on the head...this is the same issue that I've had with Chryseia.

There are some thing we need to see in the Chryseia:

Chryseia was a wine created to a Douro/Bordeaux Style. A wine with 2 kind of identities, one from douro, were the grapes come from, and the other from bordeaux, as winemaking.

As they released the wines, i think there were 2 phases of the wine:

First, 2000 and 2001, two vintages that really achieved the duality Douro/Bordeaux, and for me the best one they made

Second, 2003, 2004 and 2005, a more international style. These ones tend to catch some people and push out some others. I think this change was made on purpose

Overall i agree when you can say that younger vintages are losing some identity and become less enjoyable. But still, is a fine wine.

Joao,

You are right about the more "international" style and from I've heard this has always been the case....its also called here in the states "New World Wine."

They are good wines, but not something I personally look for in a Douro wine. There are a plethora of "international" wines on the market and if that is what you like, than this is a wine for you. However, if you're looking more for the true Douro wine, which I do, then this is a bit of a disappointment.

Have you heard anything related to the upper end Douro wines and any shutting down phases?

I revisited the wine today, it was really more enjoyable on the palate. The acidity did integrate and some complexity was showing over velvety texture.

I do think that when you taste Chryseia 2000-2001-2003 in their young phase, I agree that it has that duality profile of being semi-bordeaux and semi-douro. Just like Xisto is having. But Chryseia 2000 today was much like so many douro wines with age. To me it reminds so much of the Duas Quinta series, Cistus or Fojo wines. Wines with flavours profile similar to "dry red ports" in my opinion.

When I tasted the 2005 Chryseia last september, so are the others Symington wines too, I really thought they were going towards another direction. The ripe fruity wines full of oaky flavours are now leaving place to the more elegant style of Douro wines letting place to more pure fresh fruityness in its youth than concentrated fruit and oakyness.

Keep in mind that the Douro is starting to bring back its own tradition after 200+ years of shutted eyes on dry wines, they nead to learn again. They are making giant leaps at the moment, but still they are learning and the really best is yet to come. 2001 must have been the best vintage for dry wines in the last 20 years but the knowledge was not high enough so the general quality does seem to be lower than 2005 and 2007 for exemple.

We'll keep track of the evolution of dry wines :)