Made from 15-60 year old vineyards, with quite a lot of
Touriga Nacional and not as much
Tinta Amarela as Dirk's other wines. Dirk says that with
Vertente the wants to make a wine that is more consumer friendly than Redoma with a bit more fruit. „Still, I don't want to make a commercial easy drinking wine”. He hopes that with five years of age it will behave like a nice claret. Nice savoury berry and cherry fruit with a hint of green herbiness. The palate shows vibrant berry fruits with great depth, some structure and an appealing savoury character. Lovely balance to the fruit and nice spicy finish: a delicious wine that could probably do with a few more days.
89/100 points (= very good+)
I've struggled a little to understand Vertente - despite being the most approachable red wine in the line-up, it isn't show or flashy, and for ... it seemed a bit overpriced to me. But I suspect there's more to it than my initial impressions had previously indicated: this could well be a wine that develops into something rather serious and interesting with a few years in bottle. Redoma 2001, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. It's a wine with immediate impact, and to my palate the best
Redoma yet. This was my second encounter with it. While the 2000 had become a bit civilized and less distinctive, this has more of the wildness of the
Douro to it.
[af]
