Quinta do Noval Nacional Vintage ... Castas: Touriga Francesa, Tinto Cão, Touriga Nacional, Sousão e Tinta Roriz. Quinta do Noval has been celebrating an important anniversary in 2013. Two decades ago, immediately after the dreadful 1993 harvest, Christian Seely was appointed to manage the Portuguese estate following its high-profile acquisition by AXA Millésimes earlier that year. Twenty years later (precisely to the day), an international band of scribes and aficionados gathered at Quinta do Noval for a vertical tasting of wines from four very different regimes. Seely is now based in Bordeaux and directs AXA Millésimes in its entirety, but it is clear that his heart is still in the Douro. To use his own words, Noval’s “glory period” began in the 1920s and lasted until the 1960s under the direction of Luís Vasconcellos Porto. Not only did he help transform the vineyard, planting the famous inclined terraces, he also built up Noval’s reputation in the UK, targeting sales in Oxford and Cambridge colleges, as well as private clubs. It was under Vasoncellos Porto that the legendary but now virtually unobtainable Nacional 1931 was declared