Quinta da Carolina

DouroPortugal

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Luis Candido da Silva Jr, head enologist/wine director Dirk Niepoort’s still Douro program (as of 2023), made his first vintage at his father’s Quinta da Carolina in 2015. Facing north, this certified organic vineyard is a massale selection field blend of more than a dozen varieties grown on steeply terraced, hard blue and yellow schist bedrock and topsoil with some river sediments. Though managed and worked by Luis, fruit is also purchased (for Xis and El3mento) in higher altitude vineyards just south of Quinta da Carolina, further up into the apex of the area. Luis’ immensely different range of field-blend wines ferment spontaneously, often with stem inclusion and foot stomping. A variety of aging vessels are employed from old French oak, inox, amphora, and 1100L 60-year-old German oak fuder.

Quinta da Carolina - 2017 “Quinta da Carolina”, Tinto

Price: $48.00
Size: 750ml
Availability: 

24+ in stock

Type of Wine: Red
Grape(s): A blend of indigenous red varieties
Style: High acid, Mineral, Medium Body, Elegant and Aromatic

GROWER OVERVIEW

Luis Candido da Silva Jr, head enologist/wine director Dirk Niepoort’s still Douro program (as of 2023), made his first vintage at his father’s Quinta da Carolina in 2015. Facing north, this certified organic vineyard is a massale selection field blend of more than a dozen varieties grown on steeply terraced, hard blue and yellow schist bedrock and topsoil with some river sediments. Though managed and worked by Luis, fruit is also purchased (for Xis and El3mento) in higher altitude vineyards just south of Quinta da Carolina, further up into the apex of the area. Luis’ immensely different range of field-blend wines ferment spontaneously, often with stem inclusion and foot stomping. A variety of aging vessels are employed from old French oak, inox, amphora, and 1100L 60-year-old German oak fuder.

VINEYARD DETAILS

Quinta da Carolina Tinto comes from 2.4ha of more than a dozen varieties planted in 1931 on north-facing steep terraces overlooking the Douro at 120-180m on yellow/brown schist bedrock and 40-50 cm schist and alluvial topsoil.

CELLAR NOTES

Whole-bunch, natural fermentation for 2 weeks in concrete lagar (a shallow but wide vessel) and extracted only by foot. It’s aged in old 500-600L Austrian and French oak. No filtration or fining.

About The Wine

The vineyard of Quinta da Carolina is dated from 1931, with almost 2ha of indigenous varieties, with the majority of Tinta Amarela, Tinto Cão, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Francisca, Rufete, Tinta Roriz and Bastardo. This diversity of varieties along with the fact that the vineyard is facing north, allows us to harvest earlier and have a lot of freshness and balance between the different ripening degrees. The year of 2017 was a very dry year and also one of the warmer years of the XXI century. The rain didn’t fall since the beginning of the cycle and the temperatures were warm even during the spring, which anticipated the harvest, that was on the 18th of August. The stress that the plants were having because of the lack of water showed a lot of concentration in the fruit, but also very healthy grapes. After a very careful sorting in the vineyards, during the picking, the grapes arrived at the winery and went directly, whole bunch, to a concrete lagar, and were foot stomped lightly just to have some juice to start fermentation spontaneously. A two-week maceration on the skins with a very light extraction happened in the lagar, then the grapes were pressed, and the wine went to 500-liter barrels of Austrian and French oak for malolactic fermentation. The wine aged over 30 months in barrel, followed by a year in stainless steel where it stabilizes naturally. The wine was bottled by gravity, manually, with no filtration, finning, whatsoever.