Product Overview
100 Points - Wine Advocate
"The 2011 Quinta do Noval Nacional has an entrancing bouquet that unfolds with time. It is extraordinarily concentrated with black currant pastilles, baked earth, a touch of terracotta and bay leaf that gains more dimension with time. Yet there is undeniable purity and elegance here, a seductive chorus of aromas perfectly in tune. The palate has a wondrous symmetry and focus, perfect acidity and immense purity. Everything here is so precise and at the same time, unassuming, as if this Nacional is aware of its breeding without the impulse to brag about it. It has closed down just a little since last year, but I take this as a positive sign that this legendary Nacional will delight for decades rather than years. This is the kind of elixir that leaves you speechless – surely the finest Nacional since the ethereal 1963. Drink 2020-2060. Tasted January 2014." -NM, 4/29/14
100 Points - Wine Enthusiast
"A powerful and ripe wine, strongly influenced by its tannins, super ripe black fruit and great structure. It has all the hallmarks of a long-lived vintage Port—very rich, while densely textured and firm. This is an amazing, impressive, concentrated wine, with huge potential. From a parcel of ungrafted vines at Noval." -RV, 11/1/13
98 Points, "Collectibles" - Wine Spectator
"Offers powerfully spicy aromas and flavors, with notes of dark chocolate, plum pudding and dark cherry, accented by a firm minerality. The endless finish of bittersweet chocolate and mincemeat shows loads of grip. Best from 2035 through 2055. 30 cases imported." -KM, 2/28/14
97+ Points - Vinous
"Bright medium ruby. Knockout aromas of black fruits, pungent minerality, licorice, violet, black pepper and sexy nutty oak quickly shut down in the glass. Wonderfully sweet, layered and perfumed, with an alluring element of exotic flowers but also a spine of steel underneath. The authoritative, palate-staining finish displays outstanding energy, with the tannins really clamping down on the wine's intense fruit today. This great wine will need at least 15 years of cellaring before it approaches peak drinkability and should go on for at least a few decades beyond that." -ST, May/2014
