Thursday snapshot – Quinta do Noval 1937 Colheita

Sep 20, 12 Thursday snapshot – Quinta do Noval 1937 Colheita
Quinta do Noval Colheita 1937

Quinta do Noval Colheita 1937

I was in the Douro about a week and a half ago as a guest of the port house, Quinta do Noval. The very charming Mr. Christian Seely (managing director) and his wife, Corinne were our hosts. We had numerous colheitas* at dinner the first night and found we were all in agreement that colheita really is an unsung hero of the port family. Christian loves them and although I know many vintage port wine buffs turn up their nose at them, I love them too.

At some point during dinner Christian mentioned the 1937 and somebody else mentioned cigars and before you know it, he was bringing out boxes of cigars for us to choose from and popping open the 1937 Colheita. It was a magical evening on the terrace of the Quinta, looking down at the silvery ribbon that was the Douro river at the bottom of the valley floor, sipping the old tawny, puffing away on a fine Cuban cigar and basically solving all the port wine world’s problems.

And that Colheita? It was a fantastic companion to the Montecristo I was puffing away on. The intense flavours and aromas of the port and cigar melding into one, a wickedly decadent experience. People often pair cigars with vintage port or red wine but honestly, an old colheita can be just as good.

Yet another reason to love the Douro….

terrace in the late afternoon

terrace in the late afternoon

*colheita is a tawny port made from a single harvest

2 Comments

  1. Samuel Laird /

    We visited Noval’s sales room in February , 1998, and purchased a .750 of their 1937 Colheita in a beautiful etched bottle. It clearly was marketed to the UK and USA as the description was in English and noted that the wine was bottled in 1997. How does our bottle differ from the one in this article? Perhaps they were bottled in different years?

    • The bottle we were drinking was from Christian’s private stock at the quinta so that’s probably where the difference was. I don’t know when it was bottled to tell you the truth but probably was only for consumption at the quinta. I hope you enjoyed the ’37, we loved it!

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