Ramos Pinto : Vintage Port 2017

Deep dark ruby garnet, opaque core, purple reflections, brightening to the rim. Hints of candied purples, black forest berries, orange zest, ripe plums in the background, savory touch. Juicy, complex, pleasant sweetness, firm tannins, chocolaty finish, classic style, built for decades.

The 2017 Vintage Port is a blend of 70% Touriga Nacional (a big increase this year), 15% Touriga Franca, 10% Sousão and the rest a field blend from old vines. It comes in with 94 grams per liter of residual sugar. It was aged for only six months in very old (50+ years) Portuguese vats (balseiros) and then in cement tanks. When first seen, this was a tank sample in Porto. It's now bottled and in the USA. This seems rounder and less invigorating than the winery's Ervamoira this issue, but some may prefer the lesser personality here—relatively speaking. What you get in return is intense fruit flavors, leaning to blue fruits, the just-crushed essence of the fruit. It coats the palate and is simply delicious. The structure is not as stunning, but there certainly is some, even though this is rather approachable. That said, with a couple of days open, this developed beautifully—and better than the Ervamoira. Maybe they'll flip places again, but right now, this is better. With time, this acquired more intense aromatics and more intensely flavorful fruit. It blossomed. The hallmark of this wine became its suddenly (and surprisingly) rich fruit. Yet it is graceful too. With this performance, I do not prefer the Ervamoira anymore. It remains to be seen how well they both age over a long term. They both drank well after being open for a few days, but every young Vintage Port of quality should. It will certainly hold well for a few decades or more. In the shorter to mid-term, I expect this to become sterner, drier and more intense, as it sheds the baby fat and shows some underlying steel. It's entitled to an uptick in score.