"If the overall rainfall levels for 2020 were reassuring, the temperatures were far from it. We had heat waves in June, August, and September, which registered multi-day spikes above the 30-year average maximum temperatures. According to IPMA, “Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera” (“Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere”), the period from January to mid-September 2020 was the warmest on record.
The good news is that our indigenous varieties are well adapted to hot and dry Douro summers and demonstrate a variety of natural responses to challenging conditions (including reducing berry and bunch sizes and slowing down maturation).
The Douro is a low-yielding region even in the bumper years, but 2020 has brought us an especially small crop. Our normal yields per hectare are four times less than many other wine regions. Fortunately, our reward for navigating these challenges has been that the unsettlingly low yields resulted in some incredibly concentrated and dark wines. My first impressions – confirmed by subsequent tastings – were of particularly promising lagares with balanced Baumés. A comparable harvest is 2009, which was also a very dry and hot year, with low yields that nonetheless delivered small quantities of intense, well-structured wines and ports.” Charles Symington, Douro, 2020