Profound wines from Portugal

The red wines from this historic port-making estate are utterly fascinating. Matthew Jukes picks his favourites.

Matthew Jukes
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2014 Post Scriptum de Chryseia, Prats & Symington, Douro, Portugal (£17.25, WineDirect.co.uk; £150 in bond case of 12 bottles, FarrVintners.com).

The red wines from this historic port-making estate are utterly fascinating. This joint venture between Bruno Prats (former owner of Chteau Cos d'Estournel) and the Symington Family (owners of Graham's, Dow's, Warre's and Cockburn's) is bearing remarkable fruit. I visited the estate recently and was astounded at the quality of red wine made from their properties Quinta de Roriz and Quinta da Perdiz. 2014 Prazo de Roriz (£11.95, WineDirect.co.uk) is the entry-level wine here and it is a delightful handshake from the region.

My featured port is made from 92% Roriz and 8% Perdiz-sourced fruit and the blend is 64% touriga nacional, 28% touriga franca and 8% tinta roriz. It sees 14 months in 400-litre French oak barrels and it is structured, defined, menthol-tinged and fascinatingly red fruited. This is a wine to ponder over on a lazy afternoon, such is its incredible complexity and sotto voce delivery.

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Its big brother 2014 Chryseia turns up in June (about £50 from Farr Vintners) and this is even more demonstrative with luxurious black fruit sourced from Roriz and including a wicked, powerful parcel from neighbouring Quinta da Vila Velha. I was very fortunate to taste a sneak preview of the 2015s, too Prazo out of bottle and Post Scriptum and Chryseia out of barrel and I venture that these will turn out to be some of the most profound red wines ever made in Portugal.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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