Quinta do Vallado Touriga Nacional Douro 2009
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Winemaker Notes
With a dark crimson color, this Touriga Nacional boasts great concentration and aromas of bergamot and wild fruits, with violet and spicy hints. The taste is sweet, round and mature, with silky tannins. Red fruits follow through from the nose into a long, concentrated, fresh finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Very polished and ripe, with intense mocha and spice aromas and powerful flavors of blackberry, French roast coffee and black olive. The long finish is filled with effusive dark chocolate and Asian spice notes, with hints of toast and cream. Drink now through 2020.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Touriga Nacional, sourced from the winery’s 1994 plantings, was aged in 50% new French oak. A bit too oak tinged in its youth, this nonetheless has gorgeous structure, impeccable balance and fine concentration. It should absorb the oak as it ages. Just holding it in the glass for 90 minutes started to prove that pretty well. Give it a year or two to settle down. I was not as easily convinced by this as by its sunny 2008 predecessor, but ultimately I think they are more or less qualitatively comparable, if somewhat differently styled, this one being bigger. This has a lot to offer, including fine concentration and seductive texture. Vallado has become a player in monovarietal Touriga Nacional. There were 6,916 six-bottle cases produced. Drink now-2020.
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Wine Enthusiast
A solid, dark wine, this is structured and firmly tannic, deliciously perfumed. The black currant fruit is balanced with acidity and a dense, tarry character. The wine exudes dark power, very firm and certainly ageworthy.
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In the heart of Portugal’s most famous wine region – the Douro Valley – near the historical center of Regua, the Quinta do Vallado vineyards, winery and guest house spread across both banks of the Corgo River at the very point where it meets the Douro. With winemaking references that date back to 1716, the Quinta belonged to the legendary Portuguese vintner D. Antonia Adelaide Ferreira, and has remained in the family through modern times.
The current owners, Joao Ferreria Alvares Ribeiro, Francisco Ferreira and Francisco Olazabal, are the sixth generation of this remarkable family, and the family’s mission to produce some of the best still wines of this fertile valley continues with the red blends and varietals that are exported worldwide. Of the 38-hectare Estate, 26 hectares are filled with vines 60 years and older. It is from these vines that Quinta do Vallado’s Red Reserve and Touriga Nacional wines are made, so it is no wonder that the wines are often found to be rated and reviewed among the best wines from the Douro.
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.
The home of Port—perhaps the most internationally acclaimed beverage—the Douro region of Portugal is one of the world’s oldest delimited wine regions, established in 1756. The vineyards of the Douro, set on the slopes surrounding the Douro River (known as the Duero in Spain), are incredibly steep, necessitating the use of terracing and thus, manual vineyard management as well as harvesting. The Douro's best sites, rare outcroppings of Cambrian schist, are reserved for vineyards that yield high quality Port.
While more than 100 indigenous varieties are approved for wine production in the Douro, there are five primary grapes that make up most Port and the region's excellent, though less known, red table wines. Touriga Nacional is the finest of these, prized for its deep color, tannins and floral aromatics. Tinta Roriz (Spain's Tempranillo) adds bright acidity and red fruit flavors. Touriga Franca shows great persistence of fruit and Tinta Barroca helps round out the blend with its supple texture. Tinta Cão, a fine but low-yielding variety, is now rarely planted but still highly valued for its ability to produce excellent, complex wines.
White wines, generally crisp, mineral-driven blends of Arinto, Viosinho, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and an assortment of other rare but local varieties, are produced in small quantities but worth noting.
With hot summers and cool, wet winters, the Duoro has a maritime climate.