Casa Ferreirinha Esteva Douro Tinto

• Vintage: 2021
  
• Origin: Douro Valley, Portugal
  
• Varietal blend: 40% Tinta Roriz 35% Tinta Barroca 15% Touriga Franca 10% Touriga Nacional
• Taste guide: This wine is ruby red in colour with bright aromas of ripe strawberries, juicy cherries and floral hints. It is smooth on the palate, with polished tannins and a well-integrated acidity that gives lovely freshness and vivacity and carries the fresh red fruit flavours onto the elegant finish. Unoaked wine but there are certainly oak/vanilla nuances throughout too.
• 75cl - 12.5% - Screwcap Closure
• SLIGHT WINE STAINING TO SOME LABELS, hence the price!
• Food pairing: Herb crusted lamb/roast lamb or simply on its own

Antónia Ferreira. Affectionately nicknamed 'Ferreirinha' by her countrymen, the house pays homage to her memory and was the first house in the region dedicated to making light wines. Purchased by Sogrape in 1987, it has 520 hectares of vineyard in the Douro in all of its three sub-regions: Lower Corgo, Upper Corgo and Douro Superior. The winemaking is headed up by Luís Sottomayor, who restrains the Douro’s natural exuberance to produce wines that have a freshness, like Esteva and Papa Figos, allied to a lovely depth and texture, as with Vinha Grande Tinto and Quinta da Leda.

The Esteva Douro Tinto is made primarily from grapes from the Quintas do Caêdo, Seixo and Porto estates, located in the Pinhão area, as well as grapes from surrounding areas at higher altitudes. The soil in the Douro Valley is made up of schist - a slate-like metamorphic rock that is poor in nutrients and has useful water retention properties.The poor quality of the soil forces the grapes to produce low yields but in turn very high quality grapes.

The 2021 vintage in the Douro was characterised by cooler than average temperatures throughout the growing season. A rainy winter created good water reserves in the soil and mild conditions in the spring facilitated a problem-free budbreak. Vigorous growth early in the vegetative cycle made it necessary to control excessive growth. Though there were some localised extreme weather events in the Douro (hail the size of golf balls and thunderstorms and heavy rains which caused landslides), the Casa Ferreirinha vineyards escaped unscathed. Cool nights throughout the summer allowed the grapes to undergo a perfectly paced slow ripening and the grapes harvested had great aromatic intensity balanced by a refreshing acidity.

£11.15 - £12.99 at other merchants when checked (Aug ‘24) so £8.99 is an absolute bargain for a cracking Portuguese Red blend and one of the highest recent rated vintages.