Graham's, Stone Terraces, Vintage Port, 2024
Graham's, Stone Terraces, Vintage Port, 2024
- 75cl
- 20%
- Fortified
- Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Tinto Cão, Tinta Barroca
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Optimal drinking window: 2030 - 2070
Graham's Stone Terraces represents the house's commitment to their most prized vineyard sites in the Douro's schist-laden slopes. This 2024 vintage port captures the essence of what makes Graham's legendary: power married to elegance, concentration without brutality.
Built from the five noble varieties that define great vintage port, this needs a decade to shed its youthful intensity and reveal the complexity that lies beneath. The Stone Terraces vineyard delivers fruit of uncommon depth, and we find this vintage has the structure to reward patient cellaring until 2070. A wine that reminds you why vintage port remains one of the world's great age-worthy styles.
The Stone Terraces vineyard sits on the Douro's characteristic schist soils, which retain heat during the day and release it slowly at night, creating ideal ripening conditions. The steep terraced slopes force the vines to dig deep through fractured rock for water, concentrating flavours and developing the intense fruit character that defines great port. The vineyard's elevation and exposure create the perfect microclimate for the slow, even ripening essential for vintage port quality.
Vintage port represents the pinnacle of the Douro's winemaking tradition, declared only in exceptional years when conditions allow for wines of extraordinary quality and longevity. Unlike other port styles, vintage port is bottled after just two years in wood, allowing the wine to develop its complexity in bottle over decades. The strict regulations require approval from the Port Wine Institute, and houses typically declare vintages only two or three times per decade.
The 2024 Douro vintage caught everyone off guard with its sheer quality after a growing season that had producers biting their nails. Spring brought welcome rainfall after years of drought, filling the reservoirs and giving the vines a proper drink, but summer turned scorching with several brutal heat waves that had even the most experienced quintas wondering if they'd lost their fruit. What saved the day was the diurnal temperature variation – those cool nights in the schist amphitheatres allowed the grapes to retain their freshness whilst still achieving full ripeness, and many producers report some of the cleanest, healthiest fruit they've seen in years.
We're tasting wines with real backbone and precision rather than the overripe jamminess that heat can bring – the Touriga Nacional shows particular promise with its combination of power and restraint, whilst the old-vine Touriga Franca delivers some genuinely exciting aromatics. The reds have structure to burn and will reward cellaring, though the more approachable quintas are already drinking beautifully if you fancy a preview. For drinking: the lighter styles until 2030, the serious estate bottlings from 2028 onwards and likely until 2040.
What the critics say:
"The 2024 The Stone Terraces Vintage Port is only the sixth declaration of this Vintage Port produced with grapes from specific plots in Quinta dos Malvedos, primarily a field blend, although there is a predominance of mature Touriga Nacional. There are also some small, relatively younger plantings of Touriga Franca, Sousão and Alicante Bouschet in the Port Arthur terraces. The grapes from these vines are often co-fermented (subject to their ripening dates overlapping to some degree) to enhance complexity, structure and freshness. They look for opulence with purity and refinement here. Right now, it's very dark and has exotic fruit aromas and some mintiness and a velvety palate with fine-grained tannins. It fermented in lagar with indigenous yeasts and matured in large oak vessels for 18 months. It started quite closed and austere. Charles commented, "It's the problem with very young wines; they miss behave." But there's great balance and a polished and sleek palate, with super fine tannins. It comes in at 20% alcohol, with a pH of 3.6 and 103 grams of sugar, slightly drier than the classical Graham's. But with plenty of time in the glass, it was the most aromatic, floral and refined of all the 2024s I tasted. More refined, less resiny, more elegant. Stunning. This is truly a super Graham's. 6,240 bottles produced. "
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