Portugal
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Casa Ferreirinha Douro Vinha Grande 2022
$21.98HURRY, ONLY 12 LEFT!QuickviewJS90RP9090 Points! The 2022 Vinha Grande is a blend of Touriga Francesa, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Barroca and Tinta Roriz that matured in used French oak barrels for 12 months. 2022 was a very warm and very dry year (with one-third of the normal amount rain; 2005 was the driest year in Douro). It's an aromatic, gentle and approachable red with notes of berries, herbs and spice, a certain creaminess and a velvety palate with contained ripeness. They have room for growth here, because this wine is a mixture of grapes from different vineyards, showing the character from Douro; it's approachable and good for the table, with a certain structure and fine tannins. It's soft and easy. - Luis Gutierrez, robertparker.com
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Sandeman Tawny Port 50 Years Old
$279.98Out of StockQuickviewWS96JS97RP94WE96Out of stock97 Points! Aromas of salted nuts, toffee, brittle, and hints of tar. Honey. Candied almonds. Medium body. Very sweet. Crunchy and fresh. A blend of ports aged in wood from 40 years to 80 years. This is a new category for tawny port. Drink now. - JamesSuckling.com
96 Points! A bird of a different feather, this tawny Port features a high-pitched jasmine note along with a range of singed white peach, bitter almond, hazelnut husk, dried clementine and green fig flavors that glide through effortlessly, all carried by superfine acidity through a remarkably long and persistent finish that tilts to the dry side. Shows delicate sweetness, which lets the panoply of flavors play out unencumbered. Beautiful. Drink now. - Wine Spectator
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Quinta do Vallado Douro Reserva Field Blend 2011
$89.98HURRY, ONLY 2 LEFT!QuickviewRP9494 Points! The 2011 Reserva red is a field blend from old vines (with 80% of the grapes sourced from vines 80+ years old), plus 20% combined of Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca from vines of approximately 20 years of average age. The blend was aged in French barriques (70% new) for 17 months. In one of Douro's biggest vintages, Vallado managed to produce a surprisingly elegant and nuanced wine. That was true the first and second time I saw this long ago. This has evolved well. It shows finesse and grace at this point. The big tannins have moderated, and the wine never seems as ripe or as jammy as the 2007. (That's a relative term—the 2007 isn't all that jammy as these things go.) Yet this is a prime-time wine with finesse, elegance and fine fruit, finishing with some understatement in flavor. Unlike the 2007, this isn't as likely today to hit you over the head or grab your attention, but it is completely seductive and perfectly balanced. The texture caresses the palate with velvet. The tannins are much riper. The fruit is still there and tasty but never too obvious. It will be interesting to see how this holds and how it evolves. Unlike the 2007 or even the 2008, this seems ready without a lot of concern over whether future aging will make it a lot better. - Mark Squires, robertparker.com
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Blandy's Verdelho Colheita 2010
$99.98HURRY, ONLY 4 LEFT!QuickviewDEC94VM9494 Points! Verdelho makes medium-dry wines; the grapes for this come from Porto Moniz on the cool northwest corner of Madeira island. Mid-deep amber with a green glint. Lovely, lifted savoury aromas with a hint of dried apricots and raisins, very appetising. Delicate leafy, greengage fruit, with considerable richness (75g/l residual sugar) offset by zesty acidity that persists onto a long mouth-watering finish. Lovely poise for a relatively young Madeira wine. Enjoy a glass of this with consommé, clear soups or a Welsh rarebit. - Decanter Magazine
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Niepoort Colheita Port 2009
$42.98Out of StockQuickviewWS93JS94Out of stock94 Points! A beautiful, vintage-dated tawny that straddles the fruit of a young port with the nutty and walnut character of a tawny. It shows dried fruit, such as figs and raisins. Some chocolate, too. Medium sweet. Lightly balsamic. Drink or hold. - James Suckling
93 Points! This is inviting, with gently warmed morello and maraschino cherry fruit mixed with cinnamon, date and red licorice notes that show good persistence through the finish, which offers a sandalwood echo. Drink now. - Wine Spectator
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Taylor Fladgate Tawny Port 10 Year Old
$31.98HURRY, ONLY 2 LEFT!QuickviewRP90The NV 10 Year Old Tawny Port was bottled in 2014 with 105.23 grams per liter of residual sugar. Easily the 10 with the most weight in the Fladgate group's lineup this issue, it is a rather powerful 10 year old Tawny with plenty of pop, the biggest and baddest of the trio (Fonseca, Croft and this). There is very fine concentration of flavor for a 10 year old Tawny. If I had a quibble, the alcohol shows at times, especially early on and rather notably when drunk a little too warm. (Around 60 degrees Fahrenheit is a lot better than room temperature most of the time, to be sure, not just here.) Overall, the weight, complexity, mouth feel and grip on the finish still make this my favorite of the group of 10s submitted by Taylor Fladgate this issue, although it's close and there are some pros and cons. This comes with a bar top cork, i.e., not intended to be aged (although it most certainly can hold a couple of decades barring cork failures). - Mark Squires, eRobertParker.com #215, December 2015Learn More
