2009 Caves do Solar de São Domingos Bairrada Quinta de S. Lourenco

Community Tasting Notes (1) Avg Score: 79 points

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  11/6/2020 - forceberry wrote: 79 Points

  A more-or-less 50-50 blend of Baga and Touriga Nacional. 14% alcohol.
  
  Fully opaque, saturated blackish-red color with a streak of purple. Very sweet, opulent and quite modern nose with voluptuous aromas of dominant Bourbon oak, vanilla, caramel, some plum liqueur, light sweet notes of dried dark berries, a little bit of wizened figs, a hint of boysenberry jam and a touch of raisin. Feels quite overdone by any standards. The wine is very full-bodied, lush and extracted on the palate with powerful, polished flavors of ripe dark forest fruits, peppery spice, vanilla oak, some wizened dark plums, a little bit of jammy boysenberry, light raisiny tones, a Bourbon hint of caramelized wood and a touch of butterscotch. The overall feel is very muscular and structured with its rather acidity and ridiculously extracted, ample and heavily grippy tannins. The extremely lengthy finish is very Bourbon-like with all the American oak notes of caramel, vanilla and cloves along with some phenolic peppery tones and fruitier nuances, of raisins, dried dates, hints of boysenberry jam and a touch of earth.
  
  A perfect example of extremely overdone Portuguese red. As a blend of Baga and Touriga Nacional, this could've been a great example of a characterful, structure-driven Portuguese winemaking, but all the flavors are drenched in heavily overdone American oak tones and the wine both smell and tastes more like Bourbon than wine. Furthermore, as both Baga and Touriga Nacional are very tannic varieties to boot, the winemaking should be quite gentle as not to extract too much tannins. This wine, on the other hand, feels very much over-extracted, so it is not just lush and concentrated, but also aggressively tannic as well. So, in essence, this is drinking like sweet Bourbon-fruit jam concoction which is flavored with a healthy dose of fruit tannins. In other words, this is not an enjoyable wine by any means. It might get better with 10-20 years of cellaring - in the hopes that the tannins start to resolve and the massively overdone oak integrates with the super-ripe, heavily extracted fruit - but I wouldn't hold my breath. An interesting wine to taste for sure, but not really recommended.

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