Drinking with Douro star Tiago Alves de Sousa: a solera red, a high-end rosé, and a stunning (rare) Vintage Port
While I was in Vila Real in the Douro, doing some teaching at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alta Douro, I caught up with Tiago Alves de Sousa for some lunch, and he showed me some interesting wines. Tiago does some teaching there, and they have a really nice new winery facility for students.
He’s doing some interesting things, and one of them is what he describes as the new old vineyards of the Douro. In the past vineyards were planted at close density as field blends of many varieties all mixed in, but from the 1970s onwards new vineyards were typically planted at lower densities with all the varieties kept separate. This new project is to go back to the old ways, ‘so we don’t lose the identity of the Douro.’ These new blocks are 8000 vines per hectare, pruned double Guyot, with 15 varieties in one hectare.
The wines. First of all, a high end rosé. ‘There’s a cool movement around rosé in Portugal, and the Douro particularly,’ says Tiago. ‘I love rosés, but they weren’t being taken seriously.’ The vineyard for this wine was planted specifically with rosé in mind. It’s from a mostly east-facing site at 500 m, which is the coolest spot at Quinta da Gaivosa, and it’s planted with 80% Tinto Cão and 20% Touring Nacional. Gaivosa have 15 hectares of Tinto Cão so they are likely the biggest producers of this grape in the world. It’s very different to other red varieties in the valley, and makes extremely elegant wines often with light tannins and colour. For this rosé they use specific pressing, where the press almost doesn’t move and operates at low pressure, and they fraction the pressings and take them to barrel where it ferments and ages for a year.
Rosé Celeste by Quinta da Gaivosa 2021 Douro, Portugal
12.5% alcohol. Celebrating Tiago’s grandmother. This is pale in colour and distinctively savoury and textural, with a slight woody twist to the lively citrus fruit, with a touch of cranberry. Such precision here, with good structure and acidity. Real finesse, and age worthiness, too. 93/100
Then a solera red.
Alves de Sousa Memórias MV Douro, Portugal
This is a wine made every 10 years, to close one cycle and begin a new one. This is just the second edition, and contains wines from the best vintages spanning 2011-2019. This combines the best vineyards they farm with the dimension of time. ‘There are eight different vintages in this,’ explains Tiago. ‘Each one resulted in a specific wine with specific ageing contributing to a solera which began in 2011 in a stainless steel vat.’ He kept some stainless steel barrels from the separate vintages to go into the final blend if needed. ‘The blending process was challenging,’ he says. ‘The components are special, but it can end up being blurry.’ The first edition, made 10 years ago, was just magnums, and they aged well. This time they are making 4700 bottles, with a release price of 200 Euros. Complex nose of sweet black cherry and blackberry fruit with hints of earth and warm spices. The palate is concentrated with a core of sweet fruit but also some grainy, spicy detail and nice freshness and structure. There’s some evolution here. Tangy and complex with real intensity. 95/100
Finally a vintage Port. ‘The Douro is at its best moment ever,’ says Tiago. ‘The maturity of the winemakers and grape growers means the sector is at its best. Of course there are challenges but nothing compared with those of the past.’
Ampitheatrum by Quinta da Gaivosa Vintage Port 2020 Douro, Portugal
This is a single-vineyard Vintage Port that’s quite special. It comes from a plot, Lordelo Alta Ego, where they didn’t have many grapes because of bad fruit set, and then there was a hot summer. The quantity was small, and then it got less and less with the dry conditions. Then there was rain on 15th August but it was dry afterwards and what little water was left in the berries began to get pushed out. By mid August the grapes were at 18-21% potential alcohol. It was a rush to pick as the berries raisined. They took the berries to a small lagar and this gave them what turned out to be their best vintage Port ever: everything concentrated, including the acidity. This is super-concentrated and intense with astonishing depth of flavour, firm structure and good freshness, even though some of the fruit is very mature and even a bit jammy. But then there’s balancing black cherry and blackcurrant fruit with beautiful depth and harmony, as well as immense structure. Some notes of smoke, ash, tar and iodine, as well as some saltiness. Remarkable. 97/100
