First Taste: Quevedo Vintage Port 2018 & 2020 advent calendars

Quevedo Vintage Port 2018

Quevedo is a dynamic sibling-led project, based on Oscar and Claudia Quevedo’s family vineyards in the Douro Superior and Cima Corgo.  Adopting social media early in the piece has won them a strong following, as they have regularly shared news and views about the Douro, their wines and Ports.  Check out Oscar’s take on the vintage in this video, broadcast from Quinta Vale d’Agodinho, which provided the backbone to Quevedo’s poised 2018 Vintage Port.  

Quevedo’s innovative approach has also seen them produce the ideal Christmas present for the Port lover who has everything – an advent calendar, with 50cl bottles of Quevedo Ports behind each window (currently on special offer at The Vintage Port Shop at £69.95).  This year, The Vintage Port Shop’s Dr Tony Carter upped the stakes, challenging the Quevedos to make an extra special luxury wooden ‘calendar,’ filled, he says, with some of Quevedo’s best wines.

Quevedo limited edition luxury advent calendar 2020

Each window (or drawer) has a QR code linked to Oscar’s brief ‘video-blog-tasting-introduction’ to each port.  The limited edition of 500 individually numbered advent calendars has a retail price of £495; 100 are destined for the UK.  Contact The Vintage Port Shop for details.

Quevedo Vintage Port 2018

Like the label, this Port is suggestive of a cocoa pod/cocoa beans, with bitter chocolate to the nose, together with stalky blackcurrant fruit, bay leaf, dusty, schistous minerality and, on day three, hints of bergamot to the nose.  Notes which follow through on the palate, together with sweet raspberry, mulberry and plum.  On day two, the pure core of soft, ripe fruit whisks me back to the 70s – a cheeky childhood memory of eating a cube of Rowntree’s blackcurrant jelly! A fine but firm backbone of tannin and markedly fresh acidity bring focus and persistence.  Lovely fruit purity and elegant structure.  Retains poise and fruit intensity on day four. 19.5%  £36.95 at The Vintage Port Shop