Old Ports, Rhone Magic and a Killer Sherry: Weekly Tasting Report (May 3-9)

This week’s report has ratings for some amazing Ports from my trip to the Douro Valley last month as well as for actor Brad Pitt’s best Champagne ever, not to mention a killer vintage sherry from Lustau and hundreds of scores for outstanding wines from Spain and the Rhone Valley.

One of my takeaways from the Portugal trip was that the wine world is finally excited about rare tawny Ports, both age-designated and vintage (colheita). Until recently, vintage Port was the dominant super-premium fortified bottle from Portugal, but the market is shifting, according to the dozen or so Port shippers I spoke to, and more and more people are looking for outstanding quality tawnies. This is sending prices up as reserves become depleted both in the lodges of Vila Nova di Gaia and warehouses in the Douro.

“We used to be able to find these old Ports in the Douro, but they dried up,” said Charles Symington, the head winemaker and part of the family that owns Symington Family Estates, which controls such prestigious Port names as Graham's, Dow's and Warre's.

Symington and his family are now releasing a 50-year-old blend, which is a new category for age-designated tawny ports. The category, like others such as 20-, 30- and 40-year-old, shows the average age of the tawny port. For example, Symington mostly used a 1969 tawny for the blend that had aged in their warehouse in large old casks until blending last year.

“I didn’t want to really use it because it is my birth year!” Symington only half joked.

His cousin Rupert Symington, the head of the group, added, “He stole the family treasures!”

There are three 50-year-old tawnies rated in this report, including bottles from Graham’s, Taylor's and Sandeman. I think I like this new category better than 40-year-old because they show a more typical character for their age.

THE NEWEST FLEUR DE MIRAVAL CHAMPAGNE: Brad Pitt and his partners have made their most delicious Champagne yet.

Check out the other Ports in this report, particularly the Niepoort 1863 tawny, as well as a number of other rare Ports from Douro Boys, a group of five wine producers including Niepoort, Quinta do Crasto, Quinta do Vale Meao, Quinta do Vallado and Van Zellers & Co. Some of these old tawnies were released in celebration of their 20^th anniversary as a small association.

A few quick words about Brad Pitt’s new Champagne. It’s fantastic. He and his partners of the Provence rosé, Miraval, have made a couple releases of Fleur de Miraval with Pierre Peters Champagne, and their latest shows the most class and finesse of them all. It’s a sophisticated and complex bottle. Check out the video (left) with the assistant winemaker, Alexis Blondel.

MAGICAL MOMENT IN THE RHONE

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott is back home in Germany and Tasting Manager Kevin Davy is back in Hong Kong, but they managed to get out the final batch of tasting notes from their long tour of the French section of the Rhone Valley.

“By chance our very last visit was one of the best," Stuart said. “For us, Pierre Gonon is one of the leading winemakers of the entire region, and his Pierre Gonon St. Joseph 2020 is a near-perfect expression of syrah in the northern Rhone."

Stuart found “an incredibly deep nose of blackberries, other forest berries and smoke.” For him it’s barely full-bodied, but wine drinkers used to big reds may consider it medium-bodied. Either way, it is simultaneously rich, focused and extremely complex.

“Our tasting in the Pierre Gonon cellar, was one of those magical moments that makes this job so exciting," Stuart recalled. “In their different ways, each wine and each vintage were beautiful. For example, the Pierre Gonon St. Joseph 2021 only has 12.5 percent alcohol and aromas of green pepper and blood orange that make it a unique syrah."

Together with the steep sites and predominantly granite soil of this appellation, these wines are all strong arguments for St. Joseph being accepted as a first-tier Rhone appellation. It is commonly regarded as belonging to the second league.

Another syrah standout was the Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage 2021, which Kevin described as having a very pure and floral nose, then a succulent core of redcurrant and violets. "This is an excellent example of Crozes, but if you look through our notes you will find an enormous spread of ratings for 2021 wines from this appellation," Stuart said. “Nowhere is our role more important than in situations like this!"

Watch out for our Rhone Report 2023, coming as soon as some stragglers have been tasted.

And to add to our fruitful week of tasting fortified wines, Senior Editor Zekun Shuai uncorked a mind-blowing Spanish sherry – the Lustau Jerez Oloroso VORS 30 Years Old, from one of the most consistent players in this field, the Jerez de la Frontera-based Lustau winery.

VORS sherries (“Vinum Optimum Rare Signatum,” or more conveniently in English, “Very Old Rare Sherry”) are rare and extremely aged, and for the VORS 30 Years Old category, the wines are certified by Spain’s Consejo Regulador (Sherry Council) as having an average age of more than 30 years.

Lustau’s 2022 draw-off comes from a selection of nine old sherry casks in a solera founded 100 years ago. It was bottled without any filtration, delivering a deep amber Oloroso with a slightly blurry rim. It is awe-inspiring for the concentration and saltiness on the palate and is full of nuanced oxidative complexity. The intensity is almost painful on the palate, which is round and verges on being unctuous – but it rolls out a tangy yet mouthwatering and persistent finish.

The Oloroso is rich, oxidative and concentrated, and although it doesn’t have the refinement and energy of the sharper and saline Amontillado VORS 30 Years Old that we tasted last year, it is equally complex and shows that a top sherry can deliver an elixir-like nectar without being too sweet.

CAMPANIA CONSISTENCY

Senior Editor Ned Goodwin MW tasted a barrage of Campanian wine during his recent travels in Italy. While the region lays strong claims to complex red wines, the whites proved more consistent, as Ned discovered.

“To an extent, this is reflective of the nature of recent vintages,” Ned said. “It is also indicative of the stark reality that fewer whites are bludgeoned by poor quality oak. More so, however, the quality of the whites channels Campania’s fortuitous topography, volcanic soils, deep Mediterranean influences, altitudinal vineyards and their inherent diurnal shifts, all welded to a bevy of exceptional cultivars. With this, Campania not only challenges perceptions of Italy’s south as being too warm for quality white wine, but proves them completely erroneous.”

Ned said the arsenal of high-quality white grape varieties in Campania is unrivaled among Italian regions –  think greco, fiano and falanghina as the main act, all capable of ample stone fruit allusions, bright acidity, nutty complexities with herbal variances and a saline fleck of mineral pungency.

“To cap recent vintages, Marco Tinestra, of fine lo-fi producer Ognostro, opined that 2020, 2021 and 2022 were ‘all warm, although with different climate trends. The 2020 was incredible because we had the warmest July in history, with no rain,’” Ned said. “Miraculously, he said, the wines' uncanny freshness meant that there was no need to pick early.”

“My favorite wines, noted below, were largely from 2021,” Ned continued. “Meanwhile, 2022 was a cauldron. The hot summer led to bouts of hail, loss of crop and mildew in parts. This was noticeable when tasting wines from certain subzones. Tinestra commented that Lapio, a commune of Avellino renowned for exceptional Fiano, lost 30 percent of production.”

“Stylistically, I found that that there are three radically different expressions of white being made, almost irrespective of variety,” Ned said. “The first is straight-shooting, fresh and mineral. The Tenuta de Meriggio Fiano 2021 is such a wine. I wrote of a ‘winning purity, defined by a pistachio to fennel-flecked undercarriage of mineral…’

“Second, there is the more ambitious, later harvested idiom. While these wines are dry, they are often embellished with oak and lees handling, conferring ripe stone fruit flavors, ginger, lanolin and versatility at the table. The wines from Laura de Vito, a Fiano specialist, are good examples. Finally there are those that evince an additional structural element following time on skins. The Villa Raiano Greco di Tufo Ponte dei Santi 2021 is an exemplar.”

– James Suckling, Edtor/Chairman; Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor; Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor; Ned Goodwin MW, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.