Quinta da Romaneira Petit Verdot 2015
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Lovely color, with a vibrant fruit aroma, elegant and fresh with notes of berries and currants. Well carved and polished in the mouth, has a nice structure with good volume and some notes of wood well integrated. It is an engaging wine, with remarkable freshness and purity of fruit, giving it a charm of its own.
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It would seem odd to find Petit Verdot in the Douro, except that this estate has a French winemaker. In fact, this grape, once seen as hard to ripen in its home of Bordeaux, thrives in the hot climate of Douro giving a rich, black-fruit, dark colored wine. With tannins that are well in balance
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Wine Spectator
Aromas of spice part to currant, underbrush and brambly fruit elements in this taut, full-bodied red, with ironlike mineral and sandalwood notes echoing on the moderately tannic finish.
Romaneira is one of the great historic Quintas of the Douro Valley in Northern Portugal, on a spectacularly beautiful site overlooking the Douro river facing south, its rocky soil lending its particular character to the wines.
Recently a new and exciting chapter has been added to Romaneira's long and illustrious story, with the emergence of Romaneira as a key player in the "Douro Revolution": the discovery that our ancient local grape varieties can be used to make not only excellent Port wines, but increasingly also outstanding unfortified wines that are finding their place among the great wines of the world, while being an expression of our unique terroir.
One of the original Bordeaux varieties, Petit Verdot has a bold structure, color and aromas, which allow it to make a significant difference in Bordeaux Blends—even in modest amounts. While it isn’t planted in Bordeaux in great quantities anymore, its virtues are increasingly identified elsewhere. Somm Secret—Producing phenomenal single-varietal wines in hot and dry locations in the New World, Petit Verdot also finds a happy home in parts of Spain as well as in in Portugal’s Alentejo where it gracefully blends with the regions' indigenous varieties.
The home of Port—perhaps the most internationally acclaimed beverage—the Douro region of Portugal is one of the world’s oldest delimited wine regions, established in 1756. The vineyards of the Douro, set on the slopes surrounding the Douro River (known as the Duero in Spain), are incredibly steep, necessitating the use of terracing and thus, manual vineyard management as well as harvesting. The Douro's best sites, rare outcroppings of Cambrian schist, are reserved for vineyards that yield high quality Port.
While more than 100 indigenous varieties are approved for wine production in the Douro, there are five primary grapes that make up most Port and the region's excellent, though less known, red table wines. Touriga Nacional is the finest of these, prized for its deep color, tannins and floral aromatics. Tinta Roriz (Spain's Tempranillo) adds bright acidity and red fruit flavors. Touriga Franca shows great persistence of fruit and Tinta Barroca helps round out the blend with its supple texture. Tinta Cão, a fine but low-yielding variety, is now rarely planted but still highly valued for its ability to produce excellent, complex wines.
White wines, generally crisp, mineral-driven blends of Arinto, Viosinho, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and an assortment of other rare but local varieties, are produced in small quantities but worth noting.
With hot summers and cool, wet winters, the Duoro has a maritime climate.