Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Touriga Nacional was aged for 16 months in 50% new French barriques and comes in at 13.9% alcohol. Mildly aromatic, very graceful and precise, this balanced Touriga seems caressing and sensual. The expressive fruit is not fully developed by any means, but this is surprisingly easy to drink right now, once past the initial tannic pop. The tannins, in fact, are quite ripe. Not quite as concentrated as the previous vintage, this is nonetheless pretty fine on its own terms. It should age well too, but let's be at least a little conservative. This still has room to grow and improve in the cellar if you can hold it a few years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Wonderfully perfumed, this ripe, generous wine shows great black fruits and rich tannins. Packed with balanced juicy acidity and with a texture that brings out minerality. The wine needs to age. Drink from 2023.
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.