2016 Quinta do Soito, Jaen Reserva, Dão DOC, Portugal.
Soito’s nicely mature 2016 Jaen, also known as Mencia, is a dark and austere wine with blackberry, plum, cranberry and currant fruits leading the way on the medium bodied palate, as well as snappy minty herbs, dried flowers, bay leaf, subtle spice, mineral notes, leather and earthy tones. This rounded and supple red has a bright core of acidity, as you’d expect from a cooler climate varietal like Mencia (Jaen) and it gets much more expressive with food and this one was made much better and more interesting with a range of hard cheeses, I recommend that you have this Soito with roast poultry, lighter meat dishes and or mushroom pasta. Grown on sandy granite based soils in the cooler Dão region, the Jaen shows off its best qualities, not unlike the more famous Ribeira Sacra versions in Spain’s Galicia region, which is not that far away. For this Reserva, winemaker Carlos Silva, de-stems all the carefully sorted grapes and cool ferments and macerates it for between 6 to 10 days days before pressing to Barriques, small 225L French oak, where the wine rests for close to 8 months. As hinted at, this wine took a while to open up and grow on me, and I am now interested in the latest releases from Soito.
The Quinta do Soito, located in the region of Dão in Portugal, was all new to me and I was impressed by this Jaen, near the Serra da Estrela and Serra do Caramulo mountain ranges, and looks surrounded by picturesque vineyards in one of the oldest wine regions in Portugal. Soito is owned by Sandra Soares who, along with her husband José Carlos, established their winery in 2013, making it a newcomer on the scene, but one that is gaining attention for the quality of their bottlings. Soito’s main 7 hectares of planted vines, most planted 20 plus years ago, have varieties that the Dão region is known for, including Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Alfrocheiro, Malvasia-Fina and Jaen, (Mencia) which is one of my favorite grapes. While doing mainly still wines, interestingly I learned that Quinta do Soito also produces a Port. The Jaen Reserva is riper and more heady than the Ribeira Sacra, and maybe more like Bierzo, but still well balanced and not overtly fruity, especially with the extra bottle age this 2016 has. The Dão region, once only seeing co-ops, was first officially recognized as a Região Demarcada (DOC) in 1908, but lost its identity between the 1940s and the late 1970s, when Portugal joined the EU and rules were changed to allow the region’s true personality to shine, and we are just beginning to see its re-birth.
($40 Est.) 91 Points, grapelive