Quinta Do Vallado | Sarah Ahmed - The Wine Detective

First taste: The Douro Boys mineral-sluiced 2008 reds and powerfully fruity 2009 whites

Posted Friday 14th January 2011

The Douro Boys are the energetic, quality-focused crew behind Quintas do Vallado, do Crasto, do Vale Dona Maria, do Vale Meao and Niepoort - standard bearers for region and country both in terms of the wines and the dynamic way in which they promote them. I’ve visited and met with the Douro Boys collectively and [...]

Douro4u – a promising group of Douro producers

Posted Tuesday 28th September 2010

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I’m heading up to Orange today, a cool climate mountainous region in New South Wales, Australia, a country which is renowned for its consumer friendly wine labels. Well it’s not often you come across a Portuguese label that “does what it says on the tin,” but Douro4u, a group of producers from, surprise, surprise, the Douro, another [...]

Bibendum Summer Sale on now – up to 50% off!

Posted Wednesday 14th July 2010

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Bibendum’s annual summer sale is on now and, from next Monday, they’ll be dropping the prices on over 250 Fine Wines and will keep slashing them all week until they’re sold in their Fine Wine Price Drop Sale. Plenty of Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhone goodies to be had. See here for the full list of sale wines and [...]

Portuguese wines – some (The) Capital food and wine matching!

Posted Tuesday 24th November 2009

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Presented a superb tasting at The Capital in Knightsbridge yesterday for Waitrose Food Illustrated readers. Lots of positive comments about the wines, surprise about how good even modestly priced Portguese whites now are (take a bow Quinta de Azevedo Vinho Verde 2008 & Jose Maria da Fonseca Periquita White 2007) and some capital, of course, [...]

The Douro Boys – 2007 table wines & port report

Posted Friday 18th September 2009

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Just to say I’ve posted my full report of my visit earlier this month to meet with the Douro Boys here. It features tasting notes of new releases (2008 whites, 2007 reds and ports) and a report of vertical tastings with each of the famous five – Quintas do Vallado, do Crasto, do Vale Dona [...]

The Douro Boys – the 2007 releases

Posted Tuesday 1st September 2009

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Hey, just to let you know I’m off to see the wizards today a.k.a. the Douro Boys! I’ll be reviewing the latest 07 vintage releases - I had a sneak preview when I visited with Dirk Niepoort in June and the wines were looking pretty fab though just bottled. As for the ports, check out [...]