QuintadoVesuvio,2019VintagePort

Sans

The 2019 Quinta Vintage Ports are the result of an erratic growing season, with a little over 50% of the average winter rainfall in the Douro and almost none in the summer. Fortunately, showers at the end of August helped the grapes achieve more balanced maturations. Head Winemaker, Charles Symington, exercised patience and precisely timed the picking over six weeks – making it one of the longest harvests in recent years. The reward was a collection of perfectly ripe grape varieties in good quantities (averaging 1.27 kg/vine) delivering lively and exuberant wines. This was in contrast to the concentration of the exceptionally small years in 2017 and 2018.

Charles Symington, fourth generation winemaker, commented, “when reviewing the top wines from 2019, we felt that the best expression of our grape varieties came from our six principal quintas. These estate wines are always the starting point from which we judge the year’s Vintage Port potential and, from there, decide what to bottle. In 2019, the various plots of vineyards within each of these estates delivered small volumes of wine with fantastic depth and complexity. We believe these wines could not have been enhanced by blending across each of our port houses’ top quintas to produce a ‘classic’ Vintage Port. Instead, we decided to blend the best performing components within each of our estates and bottle six Quinta Vintage Ports. These exciting and lively young wines represent the absolute pinnacle of the 2019 harvest. They are stunning today and I believe they will age beautifully over many decades.”