The 2007 VINHA DA PONTE, from 90 year old vines, seems to me to be the most successful of Crasto’s wines this year, and it is one of the most interesting wines in the Douro’s 2007 vintage. A bit too oaky on opening, it also shows firm tannins and serious grip on the finish. Its velvety texture is sensual and the fruit is delicious, rich and opulent, yet well supported by those firm tannins. It drank better the next day, noting that the oak was still a bit troublesome. As with all of the young wines here, the oak does need to integrate better for this score to be justified. This wine, with a serious backbone that keeps getting more serious with air, should have a long enough life span so that the oak can integrate well, and it has the potential to be great. It seems to me to have just a bit more of an upside than the Reserva Old Vines, although the Reserva will likely drink better young. All that said, given the price here, one has to note that the Reserva Old Vines holds up to this bottling, and it comes in at a fraction of the price. In this economy, many find it necessary to trade down. In this vintage, it is easy to trade down, both at Crasto and elsewhere in the Douro, and do quite well. Drink 2011-2027. Crasto, on every short list for “best of Portugal,” had an awfully nice vintage this year. The Old Vines Reserva is one of the best intersections of price and quality in this report, and the Vinha da Ponte is a strong “wine of the vintage” candidate.Importer: Broadbent Selections, San Francisco, Ca.; (415) 931-1725.

The “Vinha da Ponte” is a field blend from a vineyard first planted in 1914 by the current owners’ grandfather. It has become one of Portugal’s priciest, best and most famous wines at this juncture. The 2004 “Vinha da Ponte” is unfiltered and was aged in French oak barriques for eighteen months. Fragrant and seductive, this is a wine you can have fun just smelling at the outset. Its nose is one of its best features and worth a couple of points right there. The tannins are relatively refined, but clearly there, providing grip on the lingering finish, and becoming more obvious as the wine airs out and wakes up. It has a lively, sunny feel to it, although some oak is obvious around the edges at the moment. The mid-palate is elegantly crafted, not particularly thick, but with significant aeration, it fleshes out, expands and becomes lusher and more flavorful. This does not wins first prize in any category – depth, intensity, power – but it is impeccably balanced, very flavorful, refined and a pleasure to drink. It projects a suave feel, and the purity of its bright, flavorful fruit is a wonderful thing. Utterly closed when I first opened it, showing pretty much nothing and requiring nearly four hours in a decanter, it finally began to expand in the glass and flesh out, showing more depth, flavor and intensity. The more it opened up, the more beautiful the fruit became. I look forward to great things from this wine as it evolves in the cellar. It is not always an “obvious” wine, although no one will ever mistake it for austere. Give it a chance, think about it, and sit with it. I am betting that this will become more complex and more interesting as it evolves in the cellar. There were approximately 250 cases produced. Drink 2010-2024. This old, historic estate, owned by the Roquette family, is on everyone’s short list for the designation “best dry wine producer in Portugal,” and with good reason. This is one of the estates that turbo-charged the dry red revolution in modern Portugal. As befits a standard bearer, they go from strength to strength and their wines are in high demand. Even their off-vintage wines are good, while their upper level “good vintage” wines are some of the most sought after in Portugal, and some of the most distinguished the country has to offer. The Roquettes’ exciting new joint venture with Jean-Michel Cazes (of Chateau Lynch Bages) is another feather in their caps. It is separately listed under “Roquette e Cazes.” The lineup from Quinta do Crasto was probably the most impressive that I tasted, from top to bottom, when I was in Portugal. (The wines reviewed here, as with almost everything in this report, were retasted from bottle under controlled conditions in the USA.) If there is a downside, it is the obvious one – the wines are pretty pricey, a function of prestige and, sometimes, scarcity.Importer: Broadbent Selections, San Francisco, CA; tel. (415) 931-1725