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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.
Vintage 2021
2021 was a clear reminder that while the Douro is undoubtedly being shaped by the impacts of climate change, the weather continues to be unpredictable. Following a succession of very hot and dry years in the Douro, the 2021 growth cycle and harvest were some of the coolest in recent years. The region experienced an unusually cool summer with none of the heat waves that have become common. Moderate conditions in 2021 encouraged slower, gradual maturations with balanced ripening, while the harvest was defined by three key periods of rain.
