DOW

This property contributes approximately 25% of the wine to Dow’s Vintage Port while Quinta do Bomfim usually sits the 60% mark. Senhora da Ribeira is thought of as the aromatic high notes while Bomfim is the heart, so it is interesting to bear this in mind while tasting this wine. Firstly, this could not be a more different proposition to Vesuvio. Plum and mulberry fruit abounds and this is a seriously exotic and perfumed wine with violet and mint notes. It is red to Vesuvio’s black. It is buttoned up as opposed to expansive and the co-fermented Sousão and Alicante Bouschet bring freshness and vivacity to the whole making it a more piercing wine than Vesuvio’s blanket of dark fruit flavours. This effect also appears to heighten the spice and oak elements, and while there is no doubt that Vesuvio has these elements in spades, Senhora da Ribeira wears them like filigree on a lustrous cape as opposed to burying them deep into her soul. Pure, punchy, expressive and a few shades lighter in both colour and tone than Vesuvio this is certainly a more classically shaped wine. While I am a sucker for Vesuvio’s expressive ‘night sky’ of flavour, there is undoubtedly a fascination building for the Senhora’s ‘breaking dawn’. Drinking range: 2030 - 2055 Rating: 18+ Matthew Jukes www.matthewjukes.com (Jul 2020)

The 2018 Quinta de Senhora da Ribeira, the Douro Superior quinta, is a blend of 45% Touriga Franca, 40% Touriga Nacional and the rest Alicante Bouschet and Sousão combined. It comes in with 106 grams per liter of residual sugar. Of the Symington group this issue, nothing is more intensely flavorful as this. It is certainly a step up on its Bomfim sibling this issue in concentration. Some in this set of Symington releases are equally perfumed. Some might be equally or more powerful. Nothing is more expressive except the Vesúvio, which is a bit of an outlier in this group. With violets up front and plums on the finish, it is delicious and sexy, until the hammer falls. There is plenty of power too. The next day, it shuts down. A few days later, it was drinking fairly well. This is one of the two Ports being released now, en primeur, by the Symingtons (the other being the Vesúvio). The question here will be when this comes into better balance. I'd sock it away until nearly the end of this decade, but it might be approachable sooner. There were 510 cases produced, a bit more than Bomfim, but still pretty small. Drinking range: 2027 - 2065 Rating: 92-94 Mark Squires, robertparker.com (Jun 2020)