Quinta da Romaneira Três Parcelas Touriga Nacional 2021
£34.95
The wine
Três Parcelas draws on three separate plots of Touriga Nacional across the Romaneira estate, each contributing something different. The variety at its most expressive: violet and bergamot aromatics over dense black fruit, with the structure and freshness the steep terraces reliably give.
Tres Parcelas means three plots, and the wine draws Touriga Nacional from three separate parcels across the estate, each with a different exposure and altitude. Touriga is Portugal's finest red grape, small-berried and thick-skinned, with a distinctive violet and bergamot perfume, and it forms the backbone of vintage Port.
The producer
Quinta da Romaneira
View all Quinta da Romaneira winesEstablished in 1757, Quinta da Romaneira is one of the largest single estates in the Douro: 412 hectares with three kilometres of river frontage, of which 86 are planted to vines.
The Douro was the world's first demarcated wine region, mapped and regulated in 1756, so the estate is almost exactly as old as the appellation itself. Its vineyards are cut into terraces on hillsides steep enough that mechanisation is impossible in much of the property, and the soil is schist, a layered rock that splits vertically and lets roots drive deep in search of water. That is what allows vines to survive summers in which the valley regularly exceeds forty degrees.
The many valleys and promontories of the estate give it a range of exposures and several distinct microclimates, which is why single-parcel wines like Liceiras and Mirante make sense here. Both Port and Douro table wine are made, and both are taken equally seriously, which was not always true of Douro estates. The table wines in particular have become some of the most admired in northern Portugal.
