2018 Vintage Port – Part III
It was good to receive three more 2018 Vintage Ports, a year that I am finding offers ripeness, concentration and freshness in almost equal measure. Luís Sottomayor who is responsible for Ferreira and Offley below is even more effusive: “2018 is one of the best, not the best Vintage I have witnessed. The special conditions experienced during the 2018 harvest came together to produce wines that combine extraordinary elegance with an unusual structure...”
Quinta de La Rosa 2018 ****
No background information here, just a lovely wine with a good, deep opaque colour, a touch herbaceous on the nose with lovely overt, ripe berry fruit, ripe and minty, fresh with firm tannins, well defined with lovely purity of fruit re-emerging on the finish. Not a big wine but very stylish with balance and poise. Approach in 2028. 17.5
Offley 2018 ****
Offley’s flagship quinta (Boa Vista) was sold off in 2013 and has now ended up with Sogevinus, who own Kopke, Burmester, Cálem and Barros. I don’t know where this wine originates but it is a blend of Touriga Nacional (55%), Touriga Franca (35%), Tinta Roriz (10%) presumably from other quintas in the ownership of Sogrape. Very deep, dark and intense in colour, it is tight knit with cherry and plum stone fruit, ripe and expressive, quite voluptuous with firm, stony-gravelly tannins knitting the wine together and leading to a long well defined finish. 10,000 bottles declared. 18
Ferreira ****/*****
There is more Touriga Franca here (45%), a variety that did particularly well in 2018. The rest of the blend is Touriga Nacional (40%), Old Vines (10%) and Sousão (5%). Deep, dark, opaque, marginally deeper on the rim than Offley; restrained, tight knit with underlying brooding tannins and ripe cherry fruit; broad, ripe morello cherry fruit on the palate backed by ripe, expressive fien grained tannins leading to a firm, tight knit finish. This is the best Ferreira Vintage I have tasted for many a year and should be a long-term keeper. I would love to try it again in twenty years. 14,500 bottles declared. 18.5
