Quinta do Vallado Tinta Roriz 2017

The 2017 Tinta Roriz, bottled about a week before this tasting, was aged for 18 months in used and mostly French barriques (the rest American). It comes in at 15% alcohol, a bit of an uptick in this vintage. This is all from Douro Superior. Big, dense and powerful, this is one of Vallado's reds this year that will really need a little cellar time. Lacking some of the finesse and relative approachability of the Touriga Nacional, this is gripping, tense and closed. It's not unusual in lineups to see the Tinta Roriz among the most powerful reds. That's certainly true here. One of the hardest of Vallado's 2017 reds to read at the moment, this has the potential to be great—but it also needs to prove that it can keep its balance as it ages. Let's start here and give it a few years in cellar.