Quinta do Vesuvio Vintage Port 2011

Founded by the legendary Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, Quinta do Vesuvio is one of the great Douro estates. It has a total area of 326 hectares, of which 133 hectares are planted with vines. The rest has been conserved in its natural state. The property has great variations in altitude, from 130m at the riverside to 530m at the top of the ridge. It has vineyards that face north, south, east and west, providing a remarkable range of conditions. Being so far inland, only 30k from Spain, the Quinta experiences climatic extremes, reaching very high temperatures in summer and very low in winter. It is very dry, with an average of only 400mm of rain falling each year.

Quinta do Vesuvio experiencied a generally dry viticultural year in 2011, althought the previous autumn and winter rainfall had been above average; 312mm were recorded between November 2010 and February 2011, or 70% of the total rain during the entire viticultural year at Vesuvio. This replenished the water reserves in the subsoil and thus helped to offset the almost complete lack of rain during the early to mid-summer. As is the case in so many classic Vintage years, abundant winter rains are key to the develop of the vines during the spring and summer leading up to the harvest.