Jesús Barquín: The nose is greeted by a touch of VA and a background of black-fruit and toasty notes. Rather tannic and drying, which makes it hardly enjoyable, displacing the interesting range of flavors to a secondary plane. 13.5

Alex Hunt: Ripe banana, baked apple, blackberry: appealing fruit aromas. Slightly overextracted, furry palate, though there’s a nice peppery lift at the end. Unlikely to gain in finesse but should provide good solid drinking for several years. 15

Andrew Jefford: Dense, saturated black-red. Leather, treacle—the Douro in blackstrap mood. The oak is quietly evident. Yet there’s plenty of black fruit, too, toward the riper end of the spectrum, to fill and illuminate the aromatic profile. On the palate, this is a big wine: round, generous, broad-shouldered, sweeter than many, with unapologetically ample tannins. I like its open-hearted frankness and its generous construction. It’s not the subtlest wine on the table, but there is a huge amount to enjoy here. 16.5