For The Love Of Port

Caves Messias Quinta do Cachão Tinta Barroca Douro 2000



15% abv yet doesn't seem like it. A very attractive, lifted scent of dried flowers, some peach and plum. It is still a fruit forward scent but there are some aged aspects to it that provide complexity. Full bodied, sweet fruit, slightly warming but not as strong alcohol as the label would suggest. In addition to the floral notes, there is a strong taste of liquorice. Long. A good time to be drinking it.

I don't know if this is how Tinta Barroca is supposed to be because I have only tasted a couple varietal examples. But this didn't seem obfuscated by wine making techniques or new oak, so I guess it might be what the grape is supposed to be like. And it certainly was interesting and enjoyable.

Hi Otto,

We had the 2004 Tinta Roriz and also the 2006 Touriga Nacional this weekend, so your tasting note is very timely for those of us who had the good fortune to taste the other Cachao tintos.

Thanks for your impression. Please post your bottle shot in PORTraits! Thanks.

Otto,
would you say this is more of an old world or "old school" style of wine. I ask as I've noticed many Douro wines really started changing stylistically circa 2001-2002.

Roy Hersh wrote:We had the 2004 Tinta Roriz and also the 2006 Touriga Nacional this weekend, so your tasting note is very timely for those of us who had the good fortune to taste the other Cachao tintos.

Thanks for your impression. Please post your bottle shot in PORTraits! Thanks.

How were the TR and TN? I don't think I am able to post in PORTraits as I am not a subscriber?

Andy, I have so little experience with Douro table wines that I am not sure. This didn't seem like it had too much make up from oak, but still the alcohol was pretty high and the dried flower scents could be from fruit that is more ripe than ideal which would imply an "international" style. I really would need more experience with Douro reds to answer your question properly. My gut feeling says that isn't either. It seems too ripe, soft and alcoholic to be entirely "traditional", it has too much "character" and too little new oak to be modern. A mid-modernist?

Otto, thanks that description sounds like a good combination of both.