Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2010 Touriga Nacional Quinta da Falorca, seen here as a first look, was only in bottle about 90 days when seen. It is sourced from 40-year-old-vines containing some 30 different clones. Despite its recent bottling, it seems like a beauty in this vintage, caressing in texture, more lively than the Reserva Lagar also reviewed this issue, showing increasing complexity with air and the probability of harmony in the future. It was aged for 18 months in new French oak, then held back in tank for another 18 months. This is an impressive Touriga in its earthy and complex style. There are tannins in the back – so don’t be surprised if it is a better idea to hold it rather than plunge in. There were 4,635 bottles made. Drink 2015-2028.
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.