Quinta do Passadouro Touriga Nacional 2014
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Made from 100% Touriga Nacional grapes sourced from 30 year old schist vineyards. After a rigorous selection, the grapes ferment in a granite Lagar with foot trodden and temperature control. The wine was aged for 17 months in 30% new and 70% one year old French oak barrels.
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Lifted, energetic and persistent, with herbal and chocolate-laden dark fruit aromas ceding to a seductive and classy palate with a well-defined, elegant structure and zesty acidity.
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Quinta do Passadouro is located on the left bank of the Pinhão River in the Douro Valley. The estate is co-owned by the Bohrmann family and Jorge Serôdio Borges, whose family has been in the Port wine business for years. As a testament to his pedigree in the industry, Jorge also serves as director and head winemaker. This sprawling property in the heart of the Douro’s Cima Corgo consists of two different vineyards: Quinta do Passadouro and Quinta do Sibio. Both vineyards boast a range of indigenous varieties native to the Douro, including Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Sousão and Tinta Barroca. The Passadouro vineyard has roots with the Niepoort Port house, where it used to supply grapes for their renowned Quinta do Passadouro Niepoort Vintage Port. Today, winemaker/owner Jorge Serôdio Borges focuses on making top-level dry and unfortified wines from the same vineyard. Natural farming is prioritized, and no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides are used. Irrigation is minimal and performed only by hand, and indigenous yeasts are used for almost all fermentation. Organic certification by Sativa is pending.
Due to the steep grade of the slopes where the vineyards are planted and the narrow width of the terraces, all grapes must be picked by hand. Traditional foot-treading in granite lagares is often employed, which yields fine, silky tannins since the process is so gentle on the grapes. The wines are all aged in French barriques.
Borges’s early experience includes working as an oenologist at Niepoort. Now, in addition to owning Quinta do Passadouro, he is and his wife, Sandra Tavares da Silva (also an oenologist) own the winery Wine & Soul. Sandra, who has the distinction of being the Douro's first female winemaker, gained her experience at Quinta do Vale D. Maria in the Douro and at her family’s estate of Chocapalha in Estremadura.
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.