Abandonado 2015

Description

Deep ruby colour. Great aromatic complexity and freshness, with quite unique (but typical from the Abandonado vineyard) balsamic and tar flavours, liquorice and black berries. Pure refinement, with delicacy, minerality and an extraordinary purity of fruit. It feels the schist, the surrounding forest, the freshness of the altitude, in a pure expression of the vineyard’s nature. An exercise of pure elegance and class of one of the most iconic vineyards of the Douro and Portugal.

Awards

18 pts Jancis Robinson

96 pts Decanter Points

Vinification

- Total destemming - 9 days fermentation with temperature control + 10 days maceration

Vineyard

To a particularly cold and dry winter it followed an equally dry summer. Water deficit was one of the most severe ever and temperatures were also particularly high, with several heat waves between April and July, resulting in an advance of nearly 10 days in the grapevines cycle. Only in August the temperatures eased down, even below the average, allowing a much smoother ripening than expected. These conditions also allowed impeccably healthy grapes, preserving not only of the quality but also of the quantity produced. It resulted an extraordinary vintage at all levels - generous in quantity but also in quality – overall at its very best and revealing quality peaks full of character, solid structures, depth and above all a fantastic balance between all its components. And it will be hard not to find a curious historical parallel and perhaps cyclical - 2015 was one of the driest years, only comparable to ... 2005. The harvest began earlier than ever, like ... 1995. Superstitions aside it’s impossible to be indifferent to the similarities between 2015, 2005 and 1995. And if the outstanding quality of 2005 and 1995 is clear in their wonderful evolution over the last 10 and 20 years, the high expectations for 2015 are not only natural but as easily become certainties – 2015 is one of the best years ever for the Alves de Sousa.