Another vintage in the history of a timeless wine
Much has already been said and written about Legado, Fernando Guedes’s wine. A red from the Douro that remains true to its origins and to the very roots of a Sogrape of days gone by, in an eternal tribute to future generations. With each harvest, the wine is reborn, the story is retold, and memories come to life.
Legado was conceived by Fernando Guedes during one of his long journeys through the company’s vineyards in the Douro. As soon as he encountered the robustness and timelessness of the old vines at Quinta do Caêdo, in Ervedosa do Douro, he immediately recognized their potential to produce a wine capable of paying an endless tribute to the stories, emotions, adventures, and knowledge passed down by his father and, in turn, passed on by him to subsequent generations.
Always a wine far removed from conventional standards of perfection, Legado represents a faithful portrait of the Douro—the expression of an old vineyard set in an unparalleled pre-phylloxera landscape, where more than 20 ancestral grape varieties have survived the test of time on imposing terraces. There are 8 hectares of vineyards that each year are visited by two to three horses for the customary tilling of the soil—a crucial phase for aerating the upper soil layers and for removing weeds and other pests—all carried out using entirely organic methods. Later, during the manual harvest—which often takes place in several stages—the grapes are picked, giving rise to yet another vintage.
For Fernando da Cunha Guedes, current President of Sogrape and son of the man who conceived it, “Legado is a wine steeped in a sense of time and place. A wine we eagerly await, for the memories it will evoke, and for its ability to transport us to an idyllic terroir, where vines over 100 years old demand our care, respect, and admiration.”
In the words of Luís Sottomayor, “2016 was a year with a very cold, rainy winter and a spring that was also quite rainy and not very warm, which led to outbreaks of disease in the vineyard and a consequent decrease in production. But the mild summer, with low temperatures especially at night, ultimately reflected in the style of this year’s wines, particularly in the case of Legado.” Already a wine with remarkable acidity and freshness, Legado 2016 benefited from these conditions, proving to be “a wine that maintains its style and all the complexity, harmony, and elegance for which it is well known,” he adds.
It is, therefore, a Legado that lives up to the quality of its predecessors, in a new vintage that “further enhances all its attributes and offers longer aging potential in the bottle given the unique characteristics of the year,” concludes Luís.