Community Tasting Note

forceberry wrote:

Friday, January 4, 2019 - A blend of Aragonez, Syrah and Alicante Bouschet, all varieties vinified separately. Aragonez and Syrah vinified in open-top fermenters with regular foot-trodden pigeage, Alicante Bouschet in closed fermenter with only regular pumpovers. Aged for 18 months in 228-liter French oak barriques (70% once used, 30% new). 14,5% alcohol, 2 g/l residual sugar, 6,71 g/l acidity, pH 3,61.

Saturated and quite concentrated dark cherry red color with a hint of youthful purple hue. Permits a little bit of light through. Dense, concentrated and rather sweet-toned nose with rich, youthful aromas of ripe blackcurrants and boysenberries, inky tones, some vanilla oak, a little bit of blackberry jam, light notes of juicy dark plums, a perfumed hint of fragrant blue flowers and an oaky touch of milk chocolate. The wine is very full-bodied, concentrated and chewy on the palate with intense and still very youthful flavors of ripe blackcurrants and boysenberries, some sour red plums, a little bit of savory wood spice, light boysenberry jam tones, oaky hints of extracted bitterness and subtly greenish wood tones and a touch of vanilla. Contrasting the vintage 2012 that was tasted alongside, this wine feels even bigger and more concentrated, but according to the technical analyses, this vintage has slightly lower acidity than the 2012 vintage, yet the acidity manages to show through better here, lending some balance to the mouthfeel. However, the structure relies mostly on the ripe yet very assertive and firm tannins. The finish is dense, powerful and quite noticeably grippy with concentrated, youthful flavors of boysenberry jam, some plummy tones, a little bit of vanilla oak, light blackberry tones, oaky hints of bittersweet dark chocolate and toasted wood spice and a touch of inky character.

A massively powerful powerhouse of a modernist Portuguese wine that feels remarkably similar to the vintage 2012, but whereas that particular vintage tasted more clumsy, monolithic and anonymous, this wine manages to show more sense of balance with very ripe yet vibrant, youthful fruit and slightly less conspicuous oak influence. Still a mere baby, this wine needs many more years before losing that excessively oaky modernist sheen and starting to show its best, but this wine performs noticeably better already when compared to the subsequent vintage. Priced according to its quality at 47€.

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