Porto Vintage Magalhães 2016

Tasting Notes

[From vines averaging 30 years of age.] The 2016 Vintage Port is a 60/40 blend of Touriga Franca and Touriga Nacional. This is one of those unoaked Ports that seems to be popping up more and more of late. This is one of the nicest ones. It comes in with 113 grams of residual sugar and was bottled in July 2018. Along the lines of the lovely 2015, it perhaps is not quite as aromatic, but it has a little more concentration. As with the 2015, it has beautiful intensity of flavor, plus a serious backbone. It also has fine concentration, especially given that it is unoaked - they tend to be more elegant. Then, it becomes more intense with air. It will be approachable moderately young, but it has the structure to hold for a few decades, at least. It will certainly improve over the next decade or two. With a couple of hours of air, in fact, it became much better, both in terms of evident power and intensity of flavor. The fruit became far more expressive. It finished laced with chocolate, tasting great. It is very fresh and elegant, but don't ignore the considerable power. The longer it was open (tasted over several days), the more gripping it became. Happily, the fruit was always lifted. Granting that they are not both here, at this point I probably have a minor preference for the 2015, but I suspect this will win in the long run. We'll have fun comparing over the years. Drink date: 2026-2060. (Mark Squires,robertparker.com,31 oct. 2018)