2003 Quinta do Portal Vintage Port

[Todd Pettinger]

2003 Quinta do Portal Vintage Port

Finally we came to the one I was dying to try most of all. Roy has extolled the virtues of this VP repeatedly and it sits amongst his Top 12. I admit to going in with a bias (as I have learned that my likes seem to mirror those of Roy's more often than not.) A new addition to deVine's offering of VP, Roy tipped a bunch of us off to this Port a couple of weeks ago when he led the Taylor Fladgate VP Vertical, which you should see in an upcoming newsletter as a Guest Corner column, this Port has screamed off the shelves ever since. It is, of course, the 2003 Quinta do Portal Vintage Port

Dark, almost ink-black in the center, this VP stains the glass when swirled. A nose full of blueberry fruit and blueberry pie, this continues on the palate. LOADS of fresh blueberries, blueberry jam and pie - amazing. In the back and finish, a muscle-y tannic structure exists, but is dominated and almost thoroughly masked by the fruit. Not a massive grip that I have found in other young '03s (foremost amongst them the Taylor and Noval '03 offerings,) I believe that this wine could have a marvelous life ahead of it, with evolution beyond my own imagination. If someone told me that there were actual blueberries crushed and added to this juice, I would not find myself surprised. HUGE blueberry. Some chocolate and very dark fruits pale in comparison to blueberry pie/tart filling. Amazing wine. I picked up three half-bottles for short-term drinking (before summer of '08) but have ordered two cases, one for myself and gladly one for my son, born in 2003. This will become his full case birth-right Port. I suspect I will add another case with 2x bottles from 6 other producers, so he can have a mini-horizontal to celebrate his, say, 30th birthday. Hopefully I will still be around then and I can tell him just how much evolution this Port has underwent. My WOTN and a no-brainer when it came to investing my hard-earned, extremely limited-quantity money for something to lay down for my son.