Quinta de Chocapalha CH Touriga Nacional 2012
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Pair with slow roasted brisket or braised lamb shanks.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 CH is a Touriga Nacional aged for 24 months in French barriques (70% new oak and 30% second use). It comes in at 14% alcohol. By far the most graceful wine of the generally graceful group submitted by Chocapalha this issue, this emphasizes its finesse and seems to have every component in place--excepting perhaps the oak, which is a bit too prominent just now. That should calm fairly easily. As the wine aired, it became quite beautiful. Granting that I don't have them side-by-side just now, this seems like an awfully nice follow up to the gorgeous 2011. That may have a bit higher upside and a bit more concentration, but at the moment, the fresh feel here and the glorious fruit is hard to resist. Maybe they will both be entitled to an uptick at some point.
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Named CH (the initials for Switzerland) in honor of the Swiss origins of owner Alice Tavares da Silva, this wine is made from old vines. The wine has concentration and generous tannins that are as bold as the black fruits. It is still very young, still with its young licorice flavors. Drink this wine from 2020.
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Gaining great popularity for its bold but beautifully aromatic dry red wines, Touriga Nacional is the noblest variety in Port wine. Most likely originating from the Dão region, today it grows throughout the Douro Valley as well. Somm Secret—As many as 80 grape varieties can be used to make Port wine, each contributing something unique to the resulting blend. Touriga Nacional adds great color, tannins and aromatics.
Best known for intense, impressive and age-worthy fortified wines, Portugal relies almost exclusively on its many indigenous grape varieties. Bordering Spain to its north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean on its west and south coasts, this is a land where tradition reigns supreme, due to its relative geographical and, for much of the 20th century, political isolation. A long and narrow but small country, Portugal claims considerable diversity in climate and wine styles, with milder weather in the north and significantly more rainfall near the coast.
While Port (named after its city of Oporto on the Atlantic Coast at the end of the Douro Valley), made Portugal famous, Portugal is also an excellent source of dry red and white Portuguese wines of various styles.
The Douro Valley produces full-bodied and concentrated dry red Portuguese wines made from the same set of grape varieties used for Port, which include Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (Spain’s Tempranillo), Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca and Tinto Cão, among a long list of others in minor proportions.
Other dry Portuguese wines include the tart, slightly effervescent Vinho Verde white wine, made in the north, and the bright, elegant reds and whites of the Dão as well as the bold, and fruit-driven reds and whites of the southern, Alentejo.
The nation’s other important fortified wine, Madeira, is produced on the eponymous island off the North African coast.