When in the late autumn of 2012 Charles Symington and his cousins tasted this Vintage Port from the Quinta dos Malvedos Stone Terraces, the decision was taken to bottle 4 pipes (casks) of this magnificent wine.
Graham's The Stone Terraces Vintage Port is a tribute to the men and women who labored to build the original stone walls at Quinta dos Malvedos in the late 18th century.
The small 2.9-hectare Stone Terrace vineyard at Quinta dos Malvedos produced an extraordinary wine in 2015. The grapes were picked by hand on the 12th and 13th of September, a couple of days before substantial rain fell across the Douro Valley, and were then fermented in lagares in the estate’s own winery. Yields were incredibly low at just 0.82 kg per vine but several hours of treading over the following days delivered a magnificent wine with sublime floral aromas of violets.
This is the third ‘Stone Terraces’ Vintage Port produced by Graham’s. The previous bottlings in 2011 and 2015 have received very positive acclaim. Yields on these vineyards are rarely above 1.5Kg/vine. There can be few wines in the world made with such concentration whilst also displaying such finesse, with no over-ripeness and a remarkably fresh acidity on the finish. This Stone Terraces release represents less than 2% ofthe production of the Quinta dos Malvedos estate in 2016.
This is just the fourth time that we have chosen to produce this wine. The grapes used to make The Stone Terraces come from the magnificent hand-built stone terraces surrounding the estate house at Quinta dos Malvedos which date from the late 18th century and are planted predominately with the floral and aromatic Touriga Nacional. Whereas most of the Malvedos vineyards face south, these vineyards face east and north, with a cooler microclimate that produces wines of exceptional quality, especially in such a dry year. The Stone Terraces represents less than 2% of the total Malvedos production.
Only 600 nine litre cases were bottled.
For detailed information on each wine, see The Vintage Port Site.
