The 2019 Douro vintage was among the longest in recent years, lasting up to six weeks, from the first week of September to mid-October. For many wine producers, yields were closer to average following the exceptionally small years of 2017 and 2018. Few estates in the Douro have managed to build up such an impressive reputation as Quinta do Vale Meao and recent vintages have all been received with high critical acclaim.
The grapes for this immense estate wine come from a vineyard steeped in history and with the blending of only the best Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, Barroca, and Tinto Cao, winemaker Xito Olazabal has turned this wine into a flag bearer for the Douro and Portugal. The Olazabal family, proud owners and descendants of the founder, Antonia Adelaide Ferreira, are now writing a significant chapter for this iconic estate and the region. Since 1998, Xito Olazabal has been working hard to understand the estate’s complex palette of grapes and terroirs and with his growing experience, skill, and attention to detail, the best out of the estate-grown grapes planted by soil type – alluvial, granite, and schist – are all fermented and aged separately. The resultant wines are then blended together, with different proportions each year, to best represent the estate’s overall terroir and each vintage’s individual character.
Quinto do Vale Meao Tinto 2019, Douro, 14% Abv.
2019 was a lauded vintage across many regions of Europe and this new resplendent expression of the Vale Meao tinto certainly displays wonderfully complex aromatics of pressed violets, sappy black currant, bramble berry spice, vanilla pod and an imposingly pronounced underlying minerality of graphite and crushed granite. The palate is incredibly focused and pinpoint with firm polished marble tannins, yet also weightless layers of black and blueberry fruit concentration all packaged and presented so meticulously. There is a delicious concentration and certainly no over ripe flavours but also a thrilling freshness to keep the whole palate texture glassy and sleek. The finish is stony, mineral and very serious suggesting that this wine could be one of the estate’s more age worthy examples. Drink from 2024 to 2040+.
Similar to 2017, 2018 was also a brutal year of very low yields, but for different reasons. The 2017 vintage was a year of extreme drought, while 2018 was marked in the first part of the year by an unusually heavy rainfall. This meant that potential yields were naturally much reduced by the difficulties of the flowering period. Subsequently however, a long hot dry summer ensued. Water levels in the soil had been replenished, and the result of this excellent ripening period on a low yield is evident in the 2018 Vintage Noval Port, which is magnificently ripe, profoundly fleshy and expressively complex.
The Quinta do Noval Vintage Port is made exclusively from grapes from the Quinta in the heart of the Douro Valley, and the quantity bottled (1600 cases) of the 2018 Vintage Port represents just 7% of the Quinta’s production. So as usual, a very strict selection of the very best lots was made to produce the Quinta do Noval blend. Both Touriga Nacional and Touriga Francesa flourished in 2018, in particular the Francesa which benefited for the ideal ripening conditions, and this Vintage Port blend is, needless to say, dominated by these two premium varietals.
Quinta do Noval Single Quinta Vintage Port 2018, Douro
This 2018 wine is a wonderfully ripe expression, impressively full and exuberant with a fabulously perfumed nose of ripe blueberries and black berries, salted liquorice, crushed violets, graphite and sappy hedge row spice. With a bit of air in the glass, the wine increases its allure further to reveal notes of Christmas pudding, macerated black cherries and freshly baked blueberry crumble with seductive Asian spice nuances ever present in the background chorus. Super plump and fleshy, the palate just bursts with a rich voluminous density and opulence. The harmonious layers of creamy black and blue berry fruits roll around the palate reaching out from side to side before finally reluctantly retreating leaving a long, intense, concentrated sweet spicy finish. Another block buster from this tiny but awesome vintage. If Vintage Port is your weakness, this ones going to blow you away! Noval’s ongoing high quality vintage run continues.
You know a producer is an iconic winery when they have pulling power. Ok, so what exactly is “pulling power” you might ask? Well, quite simply, pulling power is getting a call on a Thursday afternoon asking if you would like to host Xito Olazabal, the winemaker from Quinta do Vale Meao, at short notice for a small impromptu private client tasting in the cellar the following Monday… then sending out one short email… and filling an entire cellar with 20 blue chip clients. Now that’s what you call pulling power!
Of course I realised Xito was passing through town for the New Douro Tasting and I just thought it would be a crying shame to give a knee jerk trade reaction and say sorry, can’t do an event at such short notice in November, one of the busiest times of year for punters and trade alike. But the speed at which customers replied to the tasting invitation even surprised me.
Enjoying Eben Sadie’s Treinspoor Old Vine Series Tinta Barocca 2015 with Xito at dinner after the tasting.
On the Monday, Xito presented a superb masterclass showing 4 vintages of white and red Meandro do Vale Meao as well as a tantalising mini Quinta do Vale Meao first wine vertical featuring 2000, 2007, 2012 and the pre-release 2015, followed by their single vineyard Tinta Roriz and Touriga Nacional expressions. But it’s the amazing benchmark 2015 Quinta do Vale Meao I want to highlight here and that’s due to arrive in the UK shortly.
Quinta do Vale Meao 2015, Douro Tinto, 14 Abv.
This imposing wine shows impressive mineral aromatics mixing with perfumed cassis leaf, mulberry, blue berry and fragrant black cherry. There are hints of creamy blue berry muffin opulence together with very impressive fruit purity. The palate is fresh, cool and focused with impressive textural polish. The tannins are very sleek and graphitey, balancing a saline liquorice complexity that finishes with great intensity, yet pure harmony. Perhaps an element of slightly earlier picking, this wine is vibrant and intense, showing off the very best the Douro has to offer with its still wines. Not a wine you want to miss out on. Drink this comfortably from 2018 to 2035+
Yet again we are approaching one of the most exciting moments of the year… the launch of the new releases of Duncan Savage’s sought after wines. It was only after I started compiling an archive list of all the past Savage wine scores, featured below, that I realised how quickly time passes and why so many winemakers feel under so much pressure to learn, grow and utilise their incremental knowledge in each consecutive vintage release. After all, we don’t measure winemakers in age, we measure them in how many vintages they’ve made and how many more they realistically have left, all going well.
But as I write this post, our fleeting, finite time on this planet is made all the more stark as I learnt today of the sad passing of Boetie van Reenen, one of the young vineyard owners and growers responsible for much of the fruit that goes into many of Duncan Savage’s wines. Let’s hope his memory lives on in the age worthy wines of Duncan and his fellow winemakers.
On a more cheerful note, 2017 was the year that Savage Wines found a permanent home in a wonderful winery space in Salt River, just outside the city bowl suburbs of central Cape Town. Securing these premises was a massive coup for Duncan and his future growth plans. Quality can only get better with the extra focus his own winery will afford him.
Savage Wines’ 2017 Releases:
Savage White Blend 2016
After producing one of the most memorable Savage white blends in the 2015 vintage, the 2016 offering was always going to come under ever closer scrutiny. From the second of the drought vintages, this white from Duncan Savage is a blend of 54% Sauvignon Blanc, 29% Semillon and 17% Chenin Blanc with a 14% Abv. A brilliant lime straw yellow, this wine has a bold and expressive aromatic profile of pithy grated lemon peel, pineapple pastille fruits, crushed limestone minerality, pear drops and sugar dusted marshmallows. Pause for too long to appreciate the complexity in the glass and before you know it the wine has evolved further, offering up yet more intricate notes of white citrus blossom, crunchy green pears and dried baking spices of basil and thyme. With the sizeable chunk of 17% Chenin Blanc asserting itself in the blend, the 2016 has a much more distinctive Cape feel rather than the white Bordeaux Graves expression of previous vintages. There is an intense, piercing concentration to the palate, with powerful glycerol notes of white citrus, yellow grapefruit, crunchy white peaches, and tangerine peel, underpinned by a herby, dusty, wet chalk minerality. Rich, unctuous and roundly textured, this wine coats every corner of the drinker’s palate and asserts its exceptional quality, complexity and winemaking pedigree. Drink now to 2027.
(Wine Safari Score: 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW)
Savage Follow the Line Red Blend 2016
For the previous two vintages of this wine, one could wonder whether perhaps it’s exceptional quality and intensity was perhaps the result of a lucky synergistic blend or the product of a very complex, generous vintage. But this 2016 is probably the vintage that looks set to impress the critics yet again and seduce the consumer even more so than the crunchy 2015 vintage. A blend of 44% Cinsaut, 37% Grenache and 19% Syrah at 13% Abv, this wine sings a lofty melodic chorus the moment the cork is pulled. The riper, dryer vintage evidently plays to the strengths of these red varieties with the most seductive perfumed nose of parma violets, sweet cherry blossom, bathroom soaps, rose petals and potpourri sweet spice. The brilliance of this wine lies in the synergy created marrying the vibrant marzipan laden Cinsaut with the sappy, mineral, red fruited Grenache, leaving the Syrah to lend a tantalising depth of structure and peppery savouriness. The palate is so seamless, harmonious and elegant with sweet boiled raspberry bon bons, red current herbal tea infusions, ripe cranberries, and a crunchy, vibrant, strawberry fruited finale. Such sweet, silky, fleshy tannins linger on a creamy, opulent, energetic finish. Perhaps less of the exotic, crunchy hubris of the 2015, but the 2016 is certainly a far more self assured, confident red wine that looks set to once and for all, cement its global icon status as one of the truly great fine wines to follow, year in, year out. Drink now to 2030+.
(Wine Safari Score: 95+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)
Savage Are We There Yet? Red Blend 2016
A new wine in the Savage range, anyone who knows Duncan well will know that Touriga Nacional is a grape that has impressed him more and more over the years. Starting with small amounts blended into his Savage red, this new expression is a bold blend of 85% Touriga Nacional, 8% Cinsaut and 7% Grenache at 14.5 Abv. The dominant variety of the Douro Valley in Portugal, this big bold red shows a heady, lifted nose of violets, earthy mulberry, red currants, liquorice, and macerated damson plums, with complexing notes of tannery leather, sappy hedgerow, and sweet cedar and clove spice. Despite the opulent, seductive, confit fruit notes, there is a dusty, crushed grey slate mineral vein that starts on the nose and continues right through the palate. Full and fleshy, the Touriga Nacional from Malgas is supple, opulent and sweetly fruited. The Cinsaut lends both an exotic, marzipan and violet fragrant lift, but more importantly adds freshness and extra acidity cut. An intriguing wine from a very warm, dry vintage, this wine could become the natural counter-foil to the Savage Follow the Line and its crunchy, nervy energy. This bold red will find a large, welcoming audience in both the local and international markets when released. Drink now to 2026+.
(Wine Safari Score: 92+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)
Tasting barrel samples with Duncan in March 2017.Savage Red Blend 2016
If there is one wine in the Savage range that would have embraced the warm, dry growing conditions of 2016, then it must surely be the Savage red. In 2016, it is comprised of 81% Syrah, 11% Grenache and 8% Cinsaut at 13.5 Abv. Perhaps the most classically proportioned of all the Savage reds, this Syrah dominated blend has a beautifully complex nose of perfumed dried roses, black berry fruits, grilled herbs, cured meats, garrigue, fynbos and dusty granitic minerality. Very forward and opulent, the 2016’s are showing wonderful overt confidence and composure already at this early stage. Indeed the Savage red is often the one specific wine that demands a few extra years in bottle before showing you its full potential. The palate is so fleshy and forward with accessibly soft, harmonious tannins and sleek vibrant acids that elevate the red cranberry and strawberry fruit flavours and highlight the wines impressive palate concentration and depth. This seductive Savage red is going to be a hard one to keep away from your corkscrew! Drink now to 2030+.
(Wine Safari Score: 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW)
The South African launch of these wines is scheduled for 1st August 2017. You can email info@savagewines.com or ring +27 21 785 4019 to request an allocation.
The Savage Wines Score Archive Since Maiden Release:
Savage White Blend 2016 – 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Follow the Line Red Blend 2016 – 95+/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Are We There Yet Red Blend 2016 – 92+/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Red Blend 2016 – 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage White Blend 2015 – 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Red Blend 2014 – 95+/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Follow the Line Red Blend 2015 – 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Girl Next Door Syrah 2015 – 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage White Blend 2014 – 93+/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Red Blend 2013 – 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Follow the Line Red Blend 2014 – 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Girl Next Door Syrah 2014 – 93/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Red Blend 2012 – 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage White Blend 2013 – 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage Red Blend 2011 – 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Savage White Blend 2012 – 94-95/100 Greg Sherwood MW
Enjoying some French classics over dinner with Duncan in March 2017
