TN: Quinta do Côtto Douro Grande Escolha 1995

[Otto Nieminen]

Quinta do Côtto Douro Grande Escolha 1995 - Douro, 30€
12,5% abv; Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz & Sousão. Quite a lovely wine. It has a leathery aged elegance with cigar box and earth aromas; but it also has a sweet, red berry presence which coupled with a still good structure would suggest that there is no hurry to drink this despite some aged aromas. Deep and crunchy palate with lovely, sweet fruit and refreshing acidity and still noticeable tannins. I love it now for its mix of youthful vigor and its complex, aged aromas. Drink and hold.

[Andy Velebil]

Otto thanks for the note on this. It seems older Douro wine TN's, and by that I mean from the late 1990's back, are rather hard to come across. I'd guess there is none of this left in the market place to buy

[Otto Nieminen]

Otto thanks for the note on this. It seems older Douro wine TN's, and by that I mean from the late 1990's back, are rather hard to come across. I'd guess there is none of this left in the market place to buy

Was there much of a scene with dry wines made before the '90s in Douro? I thought other parts of Portugal were better known (at least it is much easier to purchase old vintages from elsewhere now) and that Barca Velha was perhaps the only one recognized far and wide?

[Andy Velebil]

From what I understand, there was a fair amount of Douro wines made pre-2000 but most of those were sold locally or for Quinta use only and mostly of poor quality. The mid to late 1990's is when things started to turn around and a number of producers started making better quality wines. And far more producers started making dry wines to sell to the public. So with some exceptions, the Douro dry wine renaissance really started in the late 1990's.

[Ronald Wortel]

Quinta do Côtto is one of those few producers that were already involved in producing high end Douro wines before the others jumped on board. The oldest Côtto Grande Escolha I tasted was 1985, some two years ago. It was still very enjoyable to drink. I had the chance of buying a case of this wine at an incredible price of 20 euro per bottle, but couldn't get the deal sealed before we left for Oman...

[Andy Velebil]

Ronald,
That's too bad. I'll have to keep my eye for this producer's wines as I don't think I've ever had one yet.

[Roy Hersh]

Miguel Champalimaud is always controversial and his wines have been around for quite awhile, with mixed success. They are not often seen here in the USA.

[Andy Velebil]

I dug out my notes and found where I tasted a couple back in 2007. The 2004 Cotto Douro and the 2001 Grande Escolha. The 2001 was the better of the two but I wasn't impressed with either especially the 2001 at 45 Euros

[Otto Nieminen]

Miguel Champalimaud is always controversial and his wines have been around for quite awhile, with mixed success. They are not often seen here in the USA.

IIRC you have hinted several times about their controversiality, but I don't remember seeing any reasons for why they are considered so. Would you care to enlighten me?