Touriga Nacional 2016
Tasting Notes
On the nose the Touriga has a hint of musk and red fruit and bergamot too. The wine is a zippy medium weight style, with red fruit and black cherry on the palate. It finishes with great length too. I see no reason to reinvent the wheel of food and wine matching either; 2 years ago Max Allen in the weekend Australian magazine paired the 2015 TN with Portuguese chicken with cucumber, fennel and avocado salad. Still sounds a great match!
Vintage
We had a very dry spring leading up to vintage 2016 and it was windy, too. We expect these kinds of conditions in Willunga, but this was pretty intense. October and December were both pretty warm, whereas November was mild. Very healthy crops were recorded across all varieties in McLaren Vale. We had a huge downpour at the end of January a few days before the whites were due to be picked; this kind of weather event tends to give Joch a sense of tightening around the left chest area, neck and sometimes down the arm. However this 50mm downpour succeeded in refreshing the vines, giving us a few more days before picking and bringing the lawns back from the brink. February was mild with cool nights and March provided pretty good picking conditions, give or take a few warm days.
Winemaking
This is our third incarnation of this wonderful Portuguese variety. We grafted Touriga onto some 25 year old Shiraz vines and sold the first few vintages to other wine companies. Touriga Nacional is one of the key varieties used to make ports, but we have made a wonderful mid-weight floral dry red style. The wine is open fermented and spends no time in oak, to allow the lovely floral characters their full expression. The wine was bottled pretty early too.
Other Vintages
Technical Details
Vineyards: Denton's
Picking Date: 29th February 2016
Bottling Date: 7th October 2016
Alc/Vol: 13.5%