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News
This is a superb baby Noval that reminds me of the 1966. Chewy yet so polished. The light sweetness suggests an overall dialing back of the sugar content. Stemmy and lightly green. A truly classic Noval. Almost all from Pinhao. Buy. Better in 2025."
98 Points James Suckling
98 pts Wine Spectator - Very seductive. Lovely fresh floral notes on the nose, many delicate complex aromas. Violets. Wonderful purity and fresh precision of fruit. Intense concentration, but delicate at the same time. Fine long tannins.
Wine Description
The Story
As always this 100% single-quinta wine is drawn from Noval’s own vines. There are three core parcels, all near the winery—the terraces directly surrounding the winery in Pinhão, the vines in the Roncão Valley and a parcel overlooking the Douro River. Each year, the blending proportions for the Vintage Port will vary depending on the vagaries of the vineyard.
THE SUPREME EXPRESSION OF THE TERROIR OF QUINTA DO NOVAL
Quinta do Noval Vintage Port is characterised by its purity of fruit and a fine, delicate quality that is typical of the wines of the property in general, but which finds its most remarkable and enduring expression in the Vintage Ports. Equilibrium, harmony, finesse and elegance characterise our great Vintage Ports, which are declared only when we are certain that the year has produced a blend, however small, that is worthy of bearing the name of Quinta do Noval Vintage Port.
Noval follows its own path in its approach to Vintage Port. If we believe that we have wines of the quality and personality to join the ranks of the Quinta do Noval Vintage Ports of previous years, we will bottle it and declare it, even if this means declaring several years in a row, and even if it means, as is often the case, bottling only a few hundred cases of Quinta do Noval Vintage Port, representing a tiny percentage of the total production of the Quinta.
Of course, in very great years, when there is unanimity among Port producers, and a General Declaration results, Quinta do Noval will declare its wine also, and perhaps with a little more wine than usual. But whatever the year, the standards of selection in the Noval tasting room are extremely rigorous, and even in the more generous years volumes of our Vintage Ports are always extremely small: at the very most, less than 20% of the production of our great vineyard terroir.
Wine Information
GRAPE VARIETIES: Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinto Cão, Sousão.
WINES ANALYSES
Alcohol: 19,5% vol
Residual sugar: 94 g/l
Total Acidity: 4,4 g/l
Ph: 3,63
VINIFICATION: Grapes are trodden by foot to obtain the must, then during fermentation macerate to obtain the best possible extraction in the lagares, the traditional stone vats from the Quinta.
MATURING: It is matured for 18 months in wooden casks in the air- conditioned cellars of the Quinta, at the demarcated region of the Douro Valley before bottling.
2016 was a year of extremes: a warm winter with high rainfall, at 618 mm twice as much as in an average year. After a wet spring, summer was very hot and dry, with some peaks of heat in August and September. By the end of August, the harvest looked extremely good, in excellent sanitary condition, but ripening began to slow down due to the very hot and dry conditions. Fortunately 17 mm of much needed rain fell on 13th September, and maturation continued in ideal conditions from this point onwards. The main part of the harvest began on 19th September in dry and sunny weather, and the fruit continued to ripen throughout the harvest period. We were able to harvest each plot in ideal conditions as ripening continued. In spite of the unusual and extreme climatic conditions of the year, the end result is of an excellent quality. The Port wines are exceptional, with excellent structure, very intense bright fruit, and aromatically very expressive.
Vintage 2016
The 2016 harvest in the Douro brought perfectly-timed rain that turned a good year into a great one. Fortunately, despite a challenging growing season and a much adjusted and delayed picking schedule, those producers with excellent vineyard knowledge and confident decision-making, were rewarded with spectacular Vintage Ports.
