New table wines from Quinta do Noval 

Christian Seely (checked shirt) flanked by Joanna Simon and Neal Martin

March 2007

Quinta do Noval, one of the Douro's most respected Port producers, has just launched their eagerly awaited first table wines. They're a little late to the Douro table wine party, but it seems they've used this time well: the wines are very good indeed. I met with Christian Seely for their London launch.

Noval have been playing around with table wines for some years now, but it’s only with these 2004s that they have been happy to market them. ‘We’ve taken our time’, says Christian Seely. ‘We started making unfortified red wines in 1996, and we’ve always dreamed of making wines that bring out the Noval and Douro terroir.’ He adds that. ‘I’ve always believed that it should be possible to do this with an unfortified wine. 

Seely admits that they went down the wrong path at the beginning, putting their hopes in Tinta Roriz (aka Tempranillo). ‘I was always a bit disappointed with the results’, he reveals. ‘It doesn’t give the same results in the Douro as it does in the Duero’. Seely reckons that Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Cão are the most exciting varieties in the Douro. ‘We’re more and more enthusiastic about Touriga Franca.’ So the trials continued, culminating in the release of these two very impressive wines. 

‘2004 was the first year that we thought we had something exciting that we could put the Noval name on’, says Seely. Impressive as these wines are, he reckons the 2005s will be even better, but 2006 turned out to be quite a difficult year and so it is unlikely that table wines will be released from this vintage with the Noval name on them.

One of the factors that has swayed Noval’s decision to go down the table wine route is because they have lots of good quality grapes coming from new vineyards and they don’t necessarily want them to end up in LBV Port. Seely says he is upset by the desperately uneconomic nature of LBV production. ‘Lots of good LBV is being made’, he says, ‘but because of the crazy price competition it isn’t an economic category’. Noval makes a serious LBV that Seely describes as a ‘baby Vintage Port’, so they avoid the price battle. But he says that as they get more quality grapes coming online, he wouldn’t want to be forced to make more LBV. 

Quinta do Noval Tinto 2004 Douro
70% Touriga Nacional, 20% Tinta Cão and 10% Touriga Franca. Production 200 cases. Dark aromatic nose of complex, sweet, spicy fruit. Beguiling, pure and complex. There’s a lovely fresh purity to it; it’s almost liqueur-like. The palate is dense, sweet and quite elegant with nic purity of black fruit supported by some spicy tannins. Expressive, elegant and quite accessible. It’s ripe, but there’s the richness and structure to support medium-term ageing. Delicious stuff. Very good/excellent 94/100 (this will retail around £35)

Quinta do Noval Cedro Tinto 2004 Douro
40% Touriga Nacional, 40% Tinta Roriz, 20% Touriga Franca. 1200 cases made, 250 of which are earmarked for the UK. Lovely open bright fruity nose is quite sweet with smoothness, purity and freshness. The palate shows nice smooth pure fruit backed up by spicy tannic structure. Stylish, spicy and pure, this is a ripe but well balanced wine of great purity and freshness. For drinking now and over the next few years. Very good/excellent 92/100 (retail around £10)
 
see also: 2004 in the Douro; interview with Christian Seely 

Wines tasted 03/07
Find these wines with wine-searcher.com

Back to top