Attollo Touriga Nacional 2013

Attollo Touriga Nacional is made from a special vineyard in the rolling Donnybrook hills.  The soils are a deep gravel loam over clay, which combined with a lovely nor west slope provide a beautiful terroir for Touriga to shine.   Touriga origins stretch to the Duro Valley in Portugal—which is an ancient valley with terraced vineyards up it’s slope.   Touriga Nacional historically provided the base to the very powerful and highly acclaimed Duoro Ports- however now days, a new breed of young Portuguese Winemakers are producing distinctive table wines from this lovely fruit as well- in combination usually with Touriga Franca, Tinta Cao and Toruiga Roriz.  To produce a pure 100% Touriga Nacional requires a certain site with specific character as this one has in the Donny Brook hills.

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 Touriga is unirrigated and shows beautiful balance, grown using a VSP trellis and cane pruning.  The Touriga was hand picked on 23rd March 2013.

1.3t of Donny Brook Touriga Nacional was chilled for 48 hrs before being gently destemmed to an open fermenter for a week long cold soak.  The wine was then inoculated with a Portuguese yeast stain and the ferment was plunged twice daily for the duration of ferment and pressed after a 10 day ferment at close to dryness when extraction was deemed sufficient.  30% whole bunches were included in the ferment to add a meaty complexity and provide fruit lift.  The wine was basket pressed to barrel for malolactic fermentation which cruised through in 5 weeks.  After malolactic fermentation, the wine was stabilised with a small sulphur addition and matured in old French oak for 17 months on light lees.  The wine was then blended and transferred by gravity to stainless steel drums for stabilisation before bottling.  As this wine has been minimally handled, a natural sediment may remain. 

pH 3.67

Titrateable Acidity [TA] 5.40g/L

Residual Sugar [RS] 0.13g/L

Volatile Acidity [VA] 0.56g/l

Alcohol 14.5%

Cases Bottled  December 2014

650L

144 6 pack screw cap

Cellaring Best

 Best 2015-8, Maximum 2024

Taste [10/05/15]

The wine has a typical deep pink red centre and a pink purple rim--  Touriga usually has a wonderful deep colour.  Cherry, chocolate and fragrant herb characters fill the nose and provide a distinctive aromatic wine unique to this Donnybrook vineyard terroir.  The wine has a powerful but moderated weight, with a beautiful line of flavour, distinctive natural acidity and fine graphite like tannins affording a dry finish.  A small amount of whole bunches included in the ferment have given this wine an element of complexity without overbearing the fruit and natural terroir expressed in the wine.  It should be noted that only old French oak barriques were used to mature this wine so oak provides softening with minimal flavour impact.  This wine will continue to blossom over the next few years.