Touriga Nacional 2020
Tasting Notes
This is a delicate mid weight wine, with lovely light floral characters; not what you would usually expect from McLaren Vale. It has bright red fruits on the nose, with a whiff of Earl Grey tea, too. It has a light, balanced palate, again with red fruits and cherries, and is nicely proportioned and full of flavour. One of the first reviews of this wine by Max Allen paired the Touriga with Portuguese chicken with cucumber, fennel and avocado salad. This pairing still stands!
Vintage
I asked Joch to give me his vintage report for 2020 and this is what I got verbatim and straight from the horse’s mouth; ‘Looked like a bastard of a year; hot and dry and then it rained in late January and early February and a cool change moved in, which continued through to February and March and these conditions finished everything off nicely. There were tiny yields and so in reality 2020 ended up only a bitch of a year, not a bastard.
Winemaking
This is our sixth version of a straight Touriga Nacional under the Bosworth label, although we have been growing this Portuguese variety for a number of years now. It was grafted onto some 25 year old Shiraz vines. Touriga is the anchor variety for proper old-school Vintage Fortified Ports out of the Douro in Portugal (hot tip, we make one too!). We use old oak to mature the wine in, and we bottle the wine early. We also picked pretty early as we want to capture the bright red fruits and floral characters.
Other Vintages
Technical Details
Vineyards: Denton's
Picking Date: 18th March 2020
Bottling Date: 31st August 2020
Alc/Vol: 13.5%