Wine & Soul Pintas Port Vintage 2018

The 2018 Pintas Vintage Port is a field blend from old vines (88-year-old vines and more than 40 different grapes) and comes in with 96 grams of residual sugar. It spent 19 months in old casks. Powerful, concentrated and precise, this intense Porto is not terribly expressive on opening—it shows dry, closed and serious, the fruit taking a back seat to the old-school power. Unevolved, this seems potentially brilliant, but it is going to need some extra time. You might be able to approach it in eight to 10 years, but a lot more time would be helpful—not so much to resolve the tannins, although they are formidable, but to allow the fruit to develop and assert itself. It doesn't seem as fresh and as balanced as the wonderful 2017, but it might have as much concentration and power, maybe more (they weren't here together). A few days later, it demonstrated better better balance too, as the fruit poked its head up and asserted itself a bit, while the alcohol took a back seat (it actually has less than the 2017). Let's start here, but it looks like another terrific Port from this producer, one of the finest 2018s so far. It won't be fun to drink young, though. There were only 2,000 bottles produced.