2023 Port & Douro Vintage

The 2023 cycle began as a rescue. After 2022, the driest hydrological year in the Douro since 1931, the rain finally arrived from 10 October 2022, then in quantity from the 19th to the end of October and through a wet November, with October and November temperatures running 2.5 to 4 degrees Celsius above average. December brought persistent heavy rain and thunderstorms; on 14 December the Douro riverbed rose around two metres above its usual level for the time of year and the basin flood plan was activated. Fladgate viticulture director Antonio Magalhaes called it the best autumn and winter the region could have had after 2022. Cold, dry January and February followed, with minimums near or below zero across the region, then bud break from 17 March in Canelas in the Baixo Corgo, 22 March at Quinta do Noval and Quinta da Manoella in the Pinhao valley, and 25 March at Quinta da Gricha. Spring ran dry and warm, 2 to 3 degrees above average, and April was hot and dry enough to push the Douro back into weak to moderate drought. Flowering began during May, with separate flower buds visible at Quinta do Crasto on 10 May, and Christian Seely at Quinta do Noval described the spring as mild and dry with good early flowering. Then came the damage. From 28 to 31 May violent rain, hailstorms, thunderstorms and strong winds hit Alijo, Murca and Carrazeda de Ansiaes, marking hundreds of hectares of vineyard and olive grove. On 12 June more hail struck around Murca, Freixo de Numao, Meda and Vila Nova de Foz Coa, which the local wine sector called catastrophic, collapsing terraces and support walls as well as destroying fruit. The moisture that followed brought heavy powdery and downy mildew pressure that needed repeated preventive treatment, and from early July a green leafhopper attack of a severity rarely seen in the region stripped leaves and stopped ripening in low-altitude plots. Summer started very hot, with 38.2 degrees Celsius at Pinhao and 39.1 at Vilarica on 24 June, and temperatures 4 to 5 degrees above average in early July. Seely's read from Quinta do Noval was that July and August were mild and sunny with no extreme heat or water stress, allowing slow homogeneous ripening, though the region also recorded 45.4 degrees Celsius at Adorigo and 44.4 at Pinhao on 22 August before temperatures eased at month end. Harvest was early, generally starting in mid-August and in some cases two weeks ahead of the previous year: Ramos Pinto on 3 August with white Viosinho, Quinta do Vallado on 8 August with Moscatel Galego, Quinta de Ventozelo on 9 August, Quinta do Noval on 17 August with Viosinho and Gouveio. Churchill's started whites on 23 August, reds on 24 August, and took its first Port grapes on 1 September. Everything changed from 2 and 3 September, when heavy rain, thunderstorms and localised hail spread across northern Portugal and made the red harvest intermittent, with frequent stops and starts. Churchill's closed its grape intake on 29 September; Quinta do Panascal ran from 5 September to 4 October; in general the harvest finished at the end of September. Yields were high, well beyond the 10 per cent increase ADVID had forecast on 12 July, to the point that cooperatives hit capacity and the Vila Real winery suspended intake on 28 September, with some receiving 50 per cent more fruit than their recent average. The IVDP set the 2023 fortified allocation at 104,000 pipas. On declaration status, 2023 was not a general Vintage Port year. Quinta do Noval declared three single-quinta wines, and the next general declaration on record came from the 2024 harvest, not this one.

• Winter: very wet autumn and winter after the 2022 drought, with a 14 December flood event on the Douro and the basin flood plan activated
• Spring: bud break from 17 March, dry and 2 to 3 degrees above average, flowering during May with good early set per Quinta do Noval
• Hail and storms: 28 to 31 May in Alijo, Murca and Carrazeda de Ansiaes; further hail 12 June around Murca, Freixo de Numao, Meda and Vila Nova de Foz Coa
• Pest and disease: heavy powdery and downy mildew pressure, plus an unusually intense green leafhopper attack from early July that stalled ripening at low altitude
• Summer: very hot start (38.2 degrees Celsius at Pinhao on 24 June, 45.4 at Adorigo on 22 August), with mild sunny July and August reported at Quinta do Noval
• Harvest: began mid-August, up to two weeks earlier than 2022; red harvest broken up by rain from 2 and 3 September; generally finished end of September
• Yield: well above the 10 per cent increase forecast by ADVID in July; cooperatives overwhelmed, Vila Real winery suspended intake 28 September
• Declaration status: NOT a general declaration year. Quinta do Noval declared three single-quinta Vintage Ports; the next general declaration came from 2024

The declaration picture for 2023 is narrow and worth stating plainly. There was no general declaration. Quinta do Noval, under managing director Christian Seely, announced three Vintage Ports from the vintage in May 2025: Quinta do Noval Nacional Vintage Port 2023, Quinta do Noval Vintage Port 2023 and Quinta do Passadouro Vintage Port 2023. Seely's account of the year emphasised temperance rather than power. A mild and notably wet winter replenished soil water, a mild dry spring gave good early flowering, and mild sunny July and August conditions with no extreme heat or water stress permitted slow homogeneous ripening into September, when the fruit arrived in the lagares ripe and healthy with clean aromatic expression, phenolic balance and freshness. He singled out several parcels of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa and Sousao as excellent, and called the Nacional and various other old-vine field blend parcels exceptional. Against that, the general declaration that broke the long gap after 2017 came from the 2024 harvest. 2023 should be read as a single-quinta year, not a classic one.

• Quinta do Noval Nacional Vintage Port 2023, Quinta do Noval Vintage Port 2023 and Quinta do Passadouro Vintage Port 2023, announced May 2025
• Seely on the style: remarkable fruit purity, structure and aromatic depth, with notable elegance, complexity and balance, expressive young but built to age for decades
• Standout parcels per Noval: Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa and Sousao, with the Nacional and old-vine field blend parcels described as exceptional
• No general declaration in 2023; the last general declaration before it was 2017 and the next was 2024

The clearest pattern of 2023 is vertical. Oscar Quevedo of Quevedo Wines, reviewing the harvest in October, said the best vineyards were again those at higher altitude, and specified the band: not so much the mountain-top sites at 700 metres, but those around 400 to 500 metres. Those plots were less affected by both the rain and the green leafhopper, which began eating vine leaves in early July and at a certain point halted ripening in low-altitude vineyards in the Douro Superior, through the Cima Corgo and up toward Tua. The leafhopper appeared for the first time in his riverside vineyards at Quinta Vale d'Agodinho and Alegria. Quevedo drew the longer conclusion himself: climate change is changing how wine is made in the Douro, and the trend of the best wines coming from higher vineyards looks set to continue.

• Best-performing band in 2023 per Quevedo: roughly 400 to 500 metres, above the rain and leafhopper damage but below the highest peaks
• Green leafhopper hit riverside and low-altitude plots hardest, stopping ripening from early July onwards
• Affected zone ran from low-altitude Douro Superior through the Cima Corgo and up toward Tua
• Quevedo's read: smaller quantities but several batches of real quality, contingent on hard selection

The most useful way to read 2023 is as two distinct harvests separated by the September rain. Everything picked before the instability, which meant all the white wine and sparkling fruit and some of the reds, came in clean. White grapes arrived at the wineries in perfect condition, in greater quantity, and the musts were rich and intense; the year's potential for white wines was not in question. The second phase caught the fruit destined for the best Port wines and the top DOC Douro reds, and that is the fruit the rain hurt. Churchill's winemaking and production director Ricardo Pinto Nunes described a very intense harvest that began under hot, stable late-August weather and then met periods of intense rain in September that caused difficulty in more sensitive and fragile vines, with the cutting pace adapted to the instability. His summary is the honest one for the year: real excitement about the potential, especially for what was picked before the second wave of heavier precipitation.

• Phase one, before the rain: whites, sparkling base and some reds, clean fruit, rich intense musts, larger volume
• Phase two, during and after the rain: Port fruit and top DOC Douro reds, the parcels most affected
• Churchill's picked whites from 23 August, reds from 24 August, first Port grapes 1 September, finished 29 September
• Selection, not volume, separated the good 2023 lots from the ordinary ones

2023's other story is economic. Production ran well past the 10 per cent increase forecast in July, and the surplus had nowhere to go. Many growers tried to sell fruit to private operators without success, and the fallback was the cooperatives, which were taking in as much as 50 per cent more fruit than their recent average and reached the limits of their logistics and storage. The Vila Real winery suspended its harvest intake on 28 September simply because it could not receive more. Producer and grower associations proposed government intervention to distil the year's wine surplus into brandy for sale to the industry, and proposed introducing a harvest contract for the following year so that a grower delivering fruit would know from the outset what quantity an operator wanted and what price would be paid, rather than waiting for final accounts. Both proposals went to the Ministry of Agriculture. The context for every Douro vintage number is the benefit system: the IVDP fixes how much must may be fortified into Port each year, and for 2023 that figure was 104,000 pipas of 550 litres.

• Cooperatives received up to 50 per cent more fruit than their recent average; Vila Real suspended intake on 28 September
• Proposed remedies sent to the Ministry of Agriculture: crisis distillation of the surplus into brandy, and a compulsory harvest contract setting quantity and price in advance
• IVDP fortified allocation for the 2023 harvest: 104,000 pipas of 550 litres each
• The Douro harvest generally runs about six weeks across roughly 42,000 hectares of vineyard and involves around 20,000 people