In Portugal (7): Vale Dona Maria: First among equals

Posted on 5 May 2011

[Click here for earlier articles in this series]

Vale Dona Maria has always been one of my very favourite Portuguese wines. I met owner Cristiano Van Zeller at the Waldorf Café hotel in London in winter 2001. I was a Polish student at large insolently asking by e-mail to taste his wine, and Cristiano responded by opening the three inaugural vintages for me. Ever since, VDM has consistently impressed me with its depth, elegance, and sense of place. Even the less-than-perfect Douro vintages such as 2002 and 2006 have been superlative here.

Vale Dona Maria has historically belonged to the family of Cristiano’s wife, Joana Lemos. After leaving Quinta do Noval in 1993, Van Zeller decided to revive this property. The quinta lies on one of Douro’s tributaries, the Torto river, and rubs shoulders which such fine estates as Ramos Pinto’s Quinta do Bom Retiro and Quinta da Corte, for years a supplier to Delaforce. VDM has, in turn, traditionally supplied Smith Woodhouse, but in 1996, Van Zeller decided to vinify the fruit for his own label. He has never looked back.

I have very fond memories of the 1997, 1998 and 1999 Vale Dona Maria I tasted back in 2001 and several times thereafter. Although the wine was vinified off-site, it displayed all that is best about the Douro valley: succulent rich fruit, complexity, old-vine depth, and a sense of fine balance and urban elegance that sets VDM from its peers. It’s also a wine that shows a masterly use of oak: always considerably less oaky on the nose and palate than the wines of Niepoort or Vale Meão, even though the actual ageing regime is very similar.

In 2001 a winery was built on-site. Currently the winemaking is overseen by Cristiano together with Sandra Tavares da Silva, a young œnologist also responsible for Quinta da Chocapalha and Wine & Soul / Pintas, an exciting project she runs with her husband Jorge Borges (and that I’ll cover in a separate article soon). The style has remained the same, with perhaps more precision and depth. I must confess to a bias towards even years here: the 2004 and 2006 are among my favourite VDMs (even though 2005 and 2007 are rated higher, on paper). During my stay at the quinta, located in the middle of vineyards in a quiet, secluded location, we tasted the 2008, 2006, 2004 (from half-bottle) and 2002 that reinforced my feelings. 2002, just like at Vale Meão, is now proving to be a very underrated vintage: it’s drinking superbly with a heady, flowery, almost Italianate perfume but still has quite some tannic power to continue improving in bottle.

So what’s the secret? Prosaically, quality is born in the vineyard. Vale Dona Maria lies in the middle of old 80–100-year-old terraced plantings of mixed varieties (which, importantly, are co-fermented), and the quality originating from these is unbeatable. One of VDM’s major assets has also been a château-like approach: there was no complicated range of different labels here, and the main wine benefitted from the high proportion of vieilles vignes. In 2003, a new, more expensive wine was introduced: CV, sourced from old vines from outside the quinta. It’s considerably tighter and more powerful with also more new oak; it needs even more time in bottle. Later Cristiano introduced several less expensive labels but as of 2009, all will be merged into Van Zellers Red, the estate’s second vin. While staying at VDM I participated in the blending of the 2009 vintage of this. A dozen samples were drawn from barriques representing various grape varieties and parcels. I wasn’t particularly keen on Tinta Roriz (the Douro’s version of Tempranillo) while Touriga Franca and Nacional were very good. Sandra Tavares who did the blending with frightening efficiency told me there was one sample who would be upgraded for VDM’s CV. It was easy to spot it in the 2009 Quinta da Corte. The family who used to sell to Delaforce sought a cooperation with Van Zeller; in the end it didn’t work, so those 3,000 liters will be one-off addition to CV, but a mighty fine wine it is: concentrated, balanced, with a superbly fine grain of old vines.

Since 1996 Quinta do Vale Dona Maria has produced some ruby-style ports including a reliable Late Bottled Vintage and a vastly overperforming Vintage (I’ve recently enjoyed the 2001). But Cristiano apparently agrees with me that the real interest in port is in the tawny style, and as of this year he will be releasing some aged colheitas (single-vintage tawnies) that he is sourcing from other shippers. There is even a 1963 but I was impressed by the 1991, the epitome of a complex, intense, poised, life-enhancing old port. One of the best wines of my trip to Portugal.

Disclosure

I stayed at Quinta do Vale Dona Maria with my family at the quinta’s invitation. Other expenses of this trip to Portugal including flights and car rental are my own.