Calvados, Port, Pinot Gris, Ca...

The 2010 Opus One is on another level and is a deep, concentrated, full-bodied, flawlessly balanced beauty. From a cooler vintage that saw significant heat spikes later in the year, it has incredible purity in its cassis and darker fruits as well as leafy tobacco, flowers, and background oak. With a great mid-palate, ripe, building tannins, and full-bodied richness on the palate, it’s a brilliant wine that has another two decades or more of prime drinking. (98) JEB DUNNUCK – TASTED 2023

Bright dark ruby. Initially reticent nose opened in the glass to reveal wonderfully complex scents of black- and redcurrant, blackberry, minerals, licorice, loam and tobacco leaf, plus a whiff of leather. Seamless, savory and classy on entry if a bit subdued, then delivers lovely restrained sweetness and a complicating wildness in the middle palate that still calls for more bottle aging. Old World in its classic dryness, this highly concentrated Opus One really shines on its vibrant, slowly building back end, where the broad, dusty tannins caress and saturate the palate and allow the fruits and minerals to build. A wine of outstanding depth, clarity, finesse of grain and class; it's hard to imagine that this site could give more. (97) STEPHEN TANZER – tasted 2020

The 2010 Opus One bursts from the glass with an exotic melange of black and blue fruits, menthol, cloves and licorice. Today the 2010 is much more overt, racy and intense than it was just a few months ago. The tannins have begun to soften, releasing the aromas and flavors in an opulent, full-bodied Opus One supported by veins of precise minerality. The 2010 is very, very young, but is also striking in its beauty. (97) ANTONIO GALLONI

Very dark savoury aromas. Dark elderberry. More bramble than blackcurrant. Very dry and firm and dense. Dry but slides over the palate – even though the tannins are very compact it remains fluid. Leaves your mouth feeling clean even though it is so mouthfilling. JULIA HARDING MW

This is the first time Noval have declared their famous Nacional since 2003 so this is an exciting development. Very dark purple stains the inside of the glass.  Gosh, a massive bruiser of a wine. There is such concentration here that not much aroma can escape initially. Wild, peppery stuff. Then wonderfully juicy and spicy. This is like the ultimate biodynamic wine with lots of microbiology going on, in a good way.  Very clean and fresh on the finish.  Not notably sweet and with more marked acidity than some.  A big contrast to, for example, Fonseca 2011. This is all about subtle topnotes rather than broad lusciousness. So vital! JANCIS ROBINSON, 2013

The 2011 Quinta do Noval Nacional has an entrancing bouquet that unfolds with time. It is extraordinarily concentrated with black currant pastilles, baked earth, a touch of terracotta and bay leaf that gains more dimension with time. Yet there is undeniable purity and elegance here, a seductive chorus of aromas perfectly in tune. The palate has a wondrous symmetry and focus, perfect acidity and immense purity. Everything here is so precise and at the same time, unassuming, as if this Nacional is aware of its breeding without the impulse to brag about it. It has closed down just a little since last year, but I take this as a positive sign that this legendary Nacional will delight for decades rather than years. This is the kind of elixir that leaves you speechless – surely the finest Nacional since the ethereal 1963. NEAL MARTIN, 2014