Touriga Nacional is one of those Portuguese grapes that needs a bit of time. In fact, we're so used to seeing this one in aged port over a still wine that the age often comes naturally.
So when we got lucky enough to find two bottles of UDACA Dao Touriga Nacional 2014 on clearance at a local wine shop, we grabbed both with one to enjoy now and one to age.
This is an important distinction, because at 10 years old this one was only starting to show its potential!
It is not terribly common to find a rose made from popular red grapes from the Douro Valley like Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz, but Quinta do Tedo did just that with their rose blend.
This one hits on all the notes we love in a good rose, with a nice balance between fruit and floral notes all around. Not bad at all for its reasonable price point!
If you love a good Rhone red blend the way I do, you may wonder if any other regions in the world can make a killer blend that would stand up to these famous French wines.
In South Africa, producer A.A. Badenhorst makes a pretty delicious bottle that packs a bit more of a punch than you'd expect thanks to being a blend of Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault plus Tinta Barroca and Touriga Nacional for good measure.
This one certainly did not leave us wanting more for complexity!
During our travels in Portugal, we were fortunate enough to taste many high-end wines at wineries and via multi-course tasting experiences at restaurants like Belcanto, DOC, and The Yeatman.
One such wine we were able to try at these dinners was the Principal Grande Reserva 2011 which was one of the most memorable pours we had on the entire trip.
Naturally, when we went wine shopping on our last day at Garrafeira Nacional (perhaps the best wine store in Lisbon), we found a bottle of this one and had to buy it to bring home.
It did not last long in our cellar after that.
When we visited Portugal in 2021, we naturally had to go tasting at the many Douro Valley wineries as well as the port houses of Vila Nova di Gaia just across the river from Porto.
One such port house we fell in love with was Kopke. Not only is this one said to be the oldest port house in the area (founded in 1638), but it is also one of the smallest, most popular, and ended up being home to one of our favorite tastings- a decades flight featuring Colheita ports from the 1960s to present spaced apart by roughly 10-year intervals.
This flight really helped us learn how flavors of tawny ports change in the barrel over time and also let us find our sweet spot of flavors we personally enjoy (generally 20 to 30 years old which works out well as prices generally spike from there).
Naturally, when we bought wine at Garrafiera Nacional in Lisbon before flying home, we had to stock up on many bottles of Kopke for our cellar. We originally wanted to pick up a bottle from our birth year (1986), but as this was not available we went one year prior and picked up a Kopke 1985 to bring home.
We opened it the following spring to celebrate our 36th birthdays because it seemed fitting to celebrate with a port that also spent 36 years in the barrel!
During our travels around Portugal, we had two kinds of red wines. The first was intense, hot climate reds that were loaded with tannin and out of balance with the other flavor characteristics. The second had the same intensity but managed to find the perfect balance to make them enjoyable.
Quinta do Portal's Grande Reserva was most certainly the latter. This wine sings.
It is always a good day when you can crack open a port, and it is an exceptionally good day when that port is worth every penny you paid for it.
Warre's LBV 2002 was just that.
This one is a blend of many grapes including Tinta Cao, Tinta Francisca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo), and Tinta Barroca and offered a delightful balance of fruit and tertiary flavors all at a rather respectable price point considering its age.
