Jesús Barquín: The nose is dominated by very ripe fruit, concentrated, with spicy background. The palate is less tightly knit, with fresh acidity and exuberant fruit—even a tad cloying, which eventually detracts a little—hinting at a strong presence of Touriga Nacional. Like most wines in the series, marked by tannin, but in this case also promising integration with bottle age. 15

Alex Hunt: Very smoky/brambly/crême-caramel nose, playing with reduction. Classy but quite tight-knit on the palate, this still needs some time to open up. Fine-grained structure that could benefit from just a bit more lift and fragrance. 15

Andrew Jefford: Saturated dense black-purple. Sweet, warm, ripe dark fruits, with some herbal complexities. A savory note, too, but accomplished with remarkable restraint. On the palate, this is a broad, richly constructed wine with great purity and depth of fruit. As in all of the best Douro reds, there is a hauntingly perfumey quality to the fruit as it sits and warms in the mouth, though here those perfumes are not so much blossomy as herbal once again. A sprinkling of almost peppery tannins, and a decided mineral cast to the finish, too. Poised and fresh overall; remarkably good. This is yet another of those wines to make you think that people might pay more for great Douro red than for great Bordeaux red in 200 years. 18