2011 Quinta do Noval LBV (unfiltered)

[Alex Bridgeman]

Bottled in February 2016, racked but not filtered before bottling. Deep ruby red colour, opaque centre. Powerful nose, sweet redcurrant fruit with some bramble and briar fruit. A slight harshness to the entry, acidic and with strongly pronounced tannins but there is plenty of fruit hiding away behind the dominant structure of the port. The structure drives through to the aftertaste and leads to a long black licorice finish. This is a great LBV, but desperately needs another 5 years in the bottle to start showing at its best. 90+

Note that Noval also makes a filtered LBV which is intended for the restaurant and aviation market. There is a code printed on the base of the bottle ""UNF11 6082"" which can be decoded to mean the contents of the bottle are the unfiltered LBV from the 2011 vintage, bottled on February 8th of 2016. 90/100. Drunk 26-Sep-16. Pop 'n' pour.