2015 Quinta do Crasto Superior

The 2015 Tinto Crasto Superior is a blend of 50% Touriga Nacional, 20% Tinta Roriz, 25% Touriga Franca and just 5% Souzão, aged for 12 months in 35% new French oak. It comes in at 14.2% alcohol. Sourced from relatively young (11 to 13 years old) vines in Douro Superior (i.e., not in Crasto's Cima Corgo Quinta), this has become a beautiful bottling for the winery. At the winery's lower end, it is largely eclipsing their regular Tinto—still very nice and notably less expensive but not always as interesting or as concentrated. This is probably the best since the 2011. Very fruit forward and sappy this year, its combination of purity and intensity of flavor makes it sensationally delicious—but always with lifted, not jammy, fruit. That is, no doubt, a product of the vintage. The fresh, lively fruit and vivid flavor is what the 2015s mostly do. It is also 2015-like in another way—a very elegant mid-palate. The concentration is subtle, but there is respectable concentration. Plus, the tannins are ripe, and the texture is caressing. It's pretty fine. Will we feel that way in five years or ten? I think the freshness will preserve this nicely, but this is one of Crasto's reds where how well it ages really isn't going to be the point. Once you taste it, it will be hard to keep your hands off of it. There were 260,000 bottles produced.