[Press release]
Graham’s is proud to announce the release of its 2011 Vintage Port. The Symington family, owners of Graham’s, believe in the outstanding quality of this wine, which is the fourth declaration in the last twelve years.
A combination of good winter rains, an ideal weather pattern immediately leading up to the vintage and perfect harvesting weather, set the scene for classic Vintage conditions. This culminated in the production of remarkable Vintage Ports with the potential to evolve superbly in bottle for many decades.
The Graham’s 2011 Vintage Port is quite exceptional and is the result of rigorous selection with only 8,000 cases bottled, a very restricted quantity, which is substantially lower than for many years. Of this, 7,000 cases will be in 75cl bottles.
Best wines from five Quintas
The Symington family have carefully chosen the very best wines from Graham’s five Upper Douro Quintas (vineyards), to make the 2011 Vintage Port. It is this ability to select wines from five great estates, situated in different locations and microclimates of this remarkable mountain vineyard region, which defines the quality of Graham’s 2011 Vintage Port. The lead component, amounting to just over one-third, comes from Graham’s historic property, Quinta dos Malvedos, with the remaining four Quintas of Tua, Lages, Vila Velha and Vale de Malhadas, making up the balance.
The perfectly ripened grapes were picked by hand in idyllic weather conditions and fermented in lagares (treading tanks). The total production in 2011 of these five Quintas was 1,454 pipes (88,855 cases) of Port, and following months of exhaustive tastings the family have selected just 131 pipes (8,000 cases) to release as Graham’s 2011 Vintage Port. Thus, the Graham’s 2011 is the sum of the very best wines made at these different Quintas, representing just 9% of their entire production.
Graham’s ‘The Stone Terraces’ 2011 Vintage Port
The Symington family have decided for the first time ever to offer alongside Graham’s classic Vintage Port, a very small bottling (250 cases, or 3,000 bottles) of Vintage Port drawn from two very special parcels of traditional stone-terraced vineyards at Quinta dos Malvedos. Accordingly, this wine has been named Graham’s ‘The Stone Terraces’ Vintage Port.
These two 18th century terraced vineyards have consistently produced extraordinary Ports. One of the two vineyard parcels was originally called ‘Port Arthur’ and has eleven schist stone terraces, ten of which have only a single row of vines on each. The other vineyard is known as Vinha dos Cardenhos and between them, the two parcels amount to a tiny fraction (1.8 hectares) of the Malvedos vineyard (89 hectares). The latter has a predominantly South-facing aspect, whereas the Port Arthur and Vinha dos Cardenhos vineyards are East-facing and North-facing. This is a very individual and distinct Vintage Port of extraordinary intensity and quality.