Quinta do Noval Vintage 1994 Port
€ 169.00
| Producer | Quinta do Noval |
| Region | Douro |
| Grapes | Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinto Cão |
| Ageing | 18 months in wooden casks |
| Alcohol | 19.5%vol |
| Serving | 12-15°C, decant before serving Keeps 2 days at most once opened |
| Scores | 94/100 Falstaff |
Noval Vintage 1994: pure fruit, finesse and elegance.
The story
Noval’s Vintage Ports stand for purity of fruit and a fine, delicate quality: balance, harmony, finesse and elegance. They are declared only in the best years, and only when the wines meet Noval’s strict standards. Even then they represent just a small share of production.
The grapes are foot-trodden in the quinta’s stone lagares and macerate during fermentation for optimal extraction. The wine ages for eighteen months in wooden casks in the quinta’s air-conditioned cellars in the Douro before bottling.
Food pairing
A delicious digestif, also with rich aged cheeses, dark chocolate or chocolate mousse.
The producer
Quinta do Noval appears in the land registry as early as 1715 and lies in the Pinhão valley, in the heart of the Douro. In 1894 the Port shipper António José da Silva bought the estate, and his family ran it for almost a century. In 1993 Noval passed to AXA Millésimes, with Christian Seely at the helm, who had most of the vineyards replanted.
Noval’s most famous asset is Nacional: a small plot of ungrafted vines, never touched by phylloxera, right by the house. It yields a Vintage Port only in exceptional years, in tiny quantities. At Noval the grapes are still foot-trodden in stone lagares.
Critics & Awards
94/100 Falstaff | Tasted: Feb 2016