The 2004 RESERVA is a big wine. Vallado builds them to age, and in the right vintage, expect both power and precision. This is intensely focused, very precise, yet ripe and dense. It is a big, brooding wine that has a chance to improve significantly with some cellaring time, but it seemed largely closed for business when I tasted it. Drink 2010-2024. Importer: Quintessential, Napa, CA; tel. (914) 725-3479.

An impressively powerful wine, with concentrated fruit from old vines. It packs dense tannins, layers flavors of ripe figs, plums and raisins, along with wood flavors. The quinta is close to Regua in the western part of the Douro vineyards, a region particularly well suited to powerful but still elegant table wines.——R.V.(9/1/2007)—— 92