2003 Quinta do Tedo Savedra

Tasting notes for individual Ports, with an index sorted by vintage and alphabetically.
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Tasting notes for individual Ports, with an index sorted by vintage and alphabetically.
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Will W.
Taylor’s LBV
Posts: 183
Joined: 14:33 Thu 11 Aug 2016

2003 Quinta do Tedo Savedra

Post by Will W. »

I wandered onto Quinta do Tedo during a blistering hot day in August 2016; it was my first visit to a Douro vineyard - I had started laying down bottles of port in northern Europe only the previous year - and I had the good fortune to be greeted by Vincent Bouchard, the proprietor, who was most generous in answering the questions of an uninvited Canadian ignoramus. After an agreeable lunch on the Tedo terrace, overlooking the Douro, I proceeded to purchase a number of bottles. The first of these was consumed on 27 May 2021, after a nine-hour decant.

The 2003 Quinta do Tedo Savedra proved to be an unusual port to characterise. In the glass, the wine was entirely opaque and largely ruby in colour, with signs of bricking and a clear rim. The nose was exceedingly subtle; prune was the dominant feature and, with some coaxing, notes of black current, nutmeg and beeswax could be discerned. On entry, the prunes remained evident, whereupon the senses crossed a bridge of black and sour cherries - an unusual construction, in my experience - to a very spicy mid-palate dominated by chili, ginger powder and perhaps a dash of cinnamon. The tannins made their appearance at the back; the said tannins, additional to what I took to a low level of residual sugar, left dust on the mouth. The finish proved to be somewhat clipped; it was dominated by still more dust and spices.

Taken as a whole, there was a certain incongruity about this wine. The nose was suggestive of a sweet treat, whereas the mouth was something other. At one moment the wine seemed full bodied, whereupon the next it came across as rather thin. The port was well balanced, although its individual components, as interesting as some were, cannot be said to have come together in a seamless manner. Still, ‘twas a most interesting experience which from which I would not deter others.

-89 points
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