2011 Douro Red Reserva

The 2011 Reserva red is a field blend from old vines (with 80% of the grapes sourced from vines 80+ years old), plus 20% combined of Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca from vines of approximately 20 years of average age. The blend was aged in French barriques (70% new) for 17 months. In one of Douro's biggest vintages, Vallado managed to produce a surprisingly elegant and nuanced wine. That was true the first and second time I saw this long ago. This has evolved well. It shows finesse and grace at this point. The big tannins have moderated, and the wine never seems as ripe or as jammy as the 2007. (That's a relative term—the 2007 isn't all that jammy as these things go.) Yet this is a prime-time wine with finesse, elegance and fine fruit, finishing with some understatement in flavor. Unlike the 2007, this isn't as likely today to hit you over the head or grab your attention, but it is completely seductive and perfectly balanced. The texture caresses the palate with velvet. The tannins are much riper. The fruit is still there and tasty but never too obvious. It will be interesting to see how this holds and how it evolves. Unlike the 2007 or even the 2008, this seems ready without a lot of concern over whether future aging will make it a lot better. This seems different in style from both of its predecessors in this vertical (the 2007 as well as the 2008). Given how big the 2011 vintage was, that probably isn't just a vintage difference. Vallado seemed to want to control the big vintage here. If so, it succeeded. The result is an understated bottling that is not as fruity or as big as you might expect. As this partial vertical goes on, that becomes a theme that gets repeated.