Attollo Quinta 2013

Attollo Quinta is predominantly a blend of the Portuguese varieties Touriga Nacional and Tinta Cao.  In Portugal, these varieties were historically  used in Port production, however more recently Portuguese winemakers have taken these and other Port[uguese] varieties from the terraced vineyards on the steep slopes of the Duoro Valley in Portugal and started making high quality table wines that exude sense of place, rusticity and authenticity.  The Attollo Quinta is a reflection of this style utilising Margaret River fruit.

Attollo Quinta 2013  was made from fruit grown in the Yallingup subregion [Dunsborough Ridge] from old gnarled vines growing in deep gravel loams on a gentle north slope overlooking the Geographe Bay.  The fruit was allowed to get very ripe and picked at the break of the season.  2013 was a perfect year, with a lovely fruitful spring and a warm to hot summer and a long dry autumn providing for ideal ripening conditions.  This vineyard is unirrigated and shows beautiful balance, grown using a modified Lyre trellis and cane pruning.  The Touriga and Tinta Cao were hand picked on 18th of April 2013.

0.45t of Touriga Nacional and 0.54t of Tinta Cao were chilled for 48 hours before being gently destemmed and conveyed to open fermenters, where they were cold soaked for 4-7 days.  After this time the must was allowed to warm up and they were seeded with a yeast isolated from a Quinta [winery] in Portugal.  The ferments were plunged twice daily initially and then only once per day until baume dryness.  They were then basket pressed to old French oak barrels for malolactic fermentation.  Once malolactic fermentation was complete, some sulphur was added and the wine was left on lees for 6 months. The wine was then carefully transferred off lees and left in barrels for another 8 months to mature.  After this point the wine looked ready, with fine tannins and adequate concentration so the wine was blended by gravity and returned to stainless steel drums for 4 months before being bottled without fining or filtration.  A small amount of Yallingup sub-region Teroldego was added to add some spice and mid-palate at blending.

This wine has had minimal inputs and will generally have a very low acidity and a moderate to high alcohol as part of this “Quinta” style.  The 2013 had more extract due to a predominance of Tinta Cao, some longer skin contact, inclusion of some Teroldego and a higher natural acidity than the 2012, but is still in this ripe low acidity character.

pH 3.85

Titrateable Acidity [TA] 5.2g/L

Residual Sugar [RS] 0.13g/L

Volatile Acidity [VA] 0.62g/l

Alcohol 15.1%

Bottled October 2014

840L

180 6 pack screw cap

Cellaring Best

Best 2015-2020, Maximum 2025

Taste [15/7/15]

The wine has a youthful dense cherry red colour with a pink red hue.  The nose is complex and brooding with dark chocolate, roast meat and herb and tar characters, with  liquered fruit  firmly in the background.  The wine has a deliberate wonderful rich  midpalate, and an intense back palate, typical for Touriga / Tinta Cao blends.  The  wine finishes with silky chocolaty tannins with some savouriness and a distinctive tannin backbone urging for richly flavoured food to complement this wine.  An indicator for wines ageing potential can be garnered from its progress whilst open – currently it is going 3 to 5 days depending on its ullage- and improving for the first 3 to 4….  So it has a long life ahead.

This wine will continue to soften and blossom over the next 5 to 10 years +.