2019 Pocas Junior Vale de Cavalos Red Blend Douro Portugal 750 ml

If red-wine regions stake their greatness on concentration and structure, then the Douro Valley deserves a spot on the pantheon. And Poças Junior has harnessed its warmth, elevation, and staggeringly steep vineyards to highlight the power and finesse that have set the region’s dry reds on a near-vertical recent trajectory.

The fourth-generation winery bases their Vale de Cavalos red on Touriga Nacional, a grape Wine Enthusiast has called “Portugal’s Answer to Cabernet” for its complexity and ageability. Rounded out by Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, and Tinta Barroca, it’s a wine of dense concentration and softly integrated tannins—full-bodied, yet as light on its feet as Muhammad Ali, with freshness and spicy lift on the finish.

Hills rise around the Douro Valley like ancient sleeping giants, all lined with terraced vineyards and layered with poor, well-draining soils. They’re sun-drenched, arid, and backbreaking to farm, but they produce dry reds that Jancis Robinson, MW called “intriguingly satisfying, with a concentration of flavor many winemakers elsewhere would kill for.”

The Vale de Cavalos comes from estate vineyards in Douro Superior, the driest and warmest part of the region. Summers pit each vine against its neighbor, locking them in a tense battle for nutrients. Yet at an altitude of 1,443–1,673 feet, Pocas’ vineyards get enough cool air to keep the wine fresh. 

2019 blessed Douro with what Wine Enthusiast scored as one of the greatest vintages ever for dry reds, and with it, well-balanced and textured grapes. After harvesting manually, Poças aged their wine partially in French Allier oak casks, polishing its tannins and stitching together its complex flavors. Now, it’s a refined, harmonious bottle that will age gracefully for several more years.