Quinta do Portal Moscatel do Douro Reserva 1996 20,40€ 18%abv
I find it a lovely drop, and at c.20€ a bottle it is great value. It smells very floral and true to Muscat, yet has the orange-like notes of wood aged Colheita! I find the scent very engaging. It is sweet yet more refreshingly acidic than vintage ports are - rather the structure reminds me of older Colheita Ports in its citrussiness. Long aftertaste that is more savoury than simply sugary. I really like this stuff!
I am moving this to the Douro wine Forum as this TN deserves to be in the right place. I have had this every time I visit Portal and even had a couple of sips on our next to last night with the group in Portugal this year. I like it a lot and find that many other producers consider Portal to make one of the finest Moscatels in the Douro.
Of course it is a very different beast then the fortified version from JM de Fonseca in Setubal which is a dense sticky dessert wine and is also very very different than the grape that used to be found in Madeira. The drier versions are great too, although this Portal botting is off-dry and retains a bit of RS with intent. They do play around a lot with Moscatel at Portal and have a good amount planted and will be doing some very different renditions in the future including a dessert style, as Paulo Coutinho their winemaker is very fond of the grape and its performance in their area.
In the nearby area of Favaios, the really top notch Moscatels are grown in that part of the Douro and their is also a fairly large cooperative that only handles the local Moscatel. Quite a little township.
Frederick Blais wrote:I did have this a few times already. It is good but lacking acidity for me.
I don't often see people who want more acidity than I do - congratulations! :) I think this had enough to balance the sweetness. The technical sheet at Alko says it is "only" 5g/l but it still seemed brighter than in Ports.
Roy, are we really talking of the same wine? I understood that this is fortified also (at least it has 18% abv). And this certainly wasn't off-dry but fully sweet, sweeter than many Ports in fact (120g/l RS). This is also the reason I didn't originally post it in the Douro Table Wine forum, since I didn't think it was a table wine at all.
