2018 Quinta do Vesuvio
Estimated value
Buying options
Tasting notes
This is a big, ripe young vintage Port with dried fruit, such as figs and prunes, treacle tart and chocolate. Full-bodied and very sweet with lots of round tannins and a long, flavorful finish. This needs five or six years to soften. Just 3% of the Vesuvio production. Try after 2025 and onwards.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
54% Touriga Nacional, 40% Touriga Franca, 6% Sousão co-fermented with Alicante Bouschet. Just 965 12-bottle cases produced, which represent just 3% of the production of this extensive property in 2018. Vines at 100 – 450 m and largely, usefully, north-facing. Trodden by foot. The Symingtons were able to buy this property about 30 years ago. Cask sample. Deep, blackish purple colour. Prunes plus freshness (Sousão?) on the nose. Very sweet start and yet with real life and spine to it. Tight and focused with real lift. Very much more than just ripe. Great concentration. Youthful with a real framework. (JR)
The 2018 Quinta do Vesuvio has a plush bouquet of black fruit laced with clove, nougat, boysenberry jam and white pepper. I would have liked a little more precision here. The palate is medium-bodied with impressive spicy attack on the entry - cracked black pepper and bitter orange, touches of liquorice and mint towards the well structured finish. Moderate length. A quality Vesuvio that deserves several years in bottle.
The 2018 Vintage Port is a blend of 54% Touriga Nacional and 40% Touriga Franca and Alicante Bouschet combined, with miscellaneous others filling out the blend. It comes in with 112 grams of residual sugar. This is one of the two Ports being released en primeur now by the Symingtons in this issue. If you are judging the group on concentration and power, this is easily the winner, the one with the biggest upside. There are some other points to make, though. You may like the style of some others more. Inky black, it is also probably the most concentrated Port in the group, although it doesn't seem to quite scale the heights of, say, the 2017. The signature features here will be the pungent aromatics and the big, ripe fruit. Actually, it is not only big in flavor, it's a little flamboyant. There is a nuance on the finish that makes it seem especially ripe; it will be interesting to see if that folds into the whole in time. The baked plums up front suggest very ripe Touriga Nacional, in particular. Then, the hammer falls, and this shows off a fair bit of power too, especially the next day. It was by far, also, the 2018 in this article that was most on top of its game when tasted a couple of days later. It will be interesting to see where this goes. It certainly has potential. There were 965 cases produced.