Old Vines in Young Hands: two new entry level Portuguese wines from The Wine Society

My crack Regional Trophy team: Beatriz Machado, Wine Director at The Yeatman, Jo Locke MW, The Wine Society and Anne Forrest, wine consultant at Vinos Sin Fronteras.

To my mind The Wine Society have the best retail list of Portuguese wines in the UK, so I was thrilled to count Jo Locke MW among my crack team of judges at Decanter World Wine Awards* last week.  This week I’ve been sampling a couple of new entry level additions to The Wine Society’s Portuguese range – a category which really puts a buyer to the test given that more than half the cost of a bottle of wine goes to the Exchequer.  Moreover the new Old Vines in Young Hands label is sourced from the Douro where hand labour and low yields (especially for old vines) make for high labour costs.  Has Locke pulled it off?  Read on.

Commercial acumen has played a role in the success of this label. Despite the Douro fruit, Old Vines in Young Hands Branco (white) and Tinto (red) are labelled table wine as labelling the wines DO Douro would make the wine more expensive.   Both come in at £5.95 a bottle.  And putting fruit from the Vila Real Cooperative whose grower members have access to old vine (field blend) fruit in the capable hands of well known winemaker/consultant Rui Madeira and Luis Cortinhas has also paid dividends.   Not that I want to over-state the case – these are entry level wines.  But the red in particular is well done and both give a flavour of Portugal and the Douro.

Old Vines in Young Hands Branco 2013 (Portugal)

This front label for this wine describes it as “crisp and fruity.”  Crisp it most definitely is but fruit doesn’t feature in my notes unless you include citric acidity, a notable feature of this wine which, together with its Douro salinity, lends attractive freshness.   Both nose and palate have a toasty sulphides (not oak derived) edge which will appeal to some but not others.  For me it’s a point of interest in an entry level wine but caveat emptor if you are looking for something fruitier and some might find the acidity a touch strident.  13%

Old Vines in Young Hands Tinto 2013 (Portugal)

With a reductive note on opening the red benefits from a bit of air and, with a deep breath or two, delivers lashings of black berry, cherry and currant fruit with a classic chocolately Douro edge (and on day 2).  A touch of salt lick too – another Douro character trait.  A dash of residual sugar plumps up the mid-palate and the finish is, as my WSET Diploma notes might have said “medium minus.”  Well done at this price point and it certainly got my dad’s vote.    Will he buy it I asked? “I will, I will” he replied.  And it would be my pick of the pair.  13.5%

*The results of last week’s judging at Decanter World Wine Awards will be published earlier this year in the August issue of Decanter (out on 2^nd July).