Soito Estate Red Touriga Nacional Blend 2019
£18.95
The wine
Refined notes of ripe red fruit, cassis and blackberry are complemented by a touch of black pepper, cocoa and vanilla. Opulent, with firm tannins enveloping the fruit and spicy hints on the persistent finish.
The same blend from a different year, led by Touriga Nacional. The Dão is sheltered by mountains from both Atlantic rain and Spanish heat, which gives it a growing season quite unlike anywhere else in Portugal, and the wines have long been called the most classical the country makes.
The producer
Soito
View all Soito winesSoito was established in 2013 by Jose Carlos and Sandra Soares, two former teachers who gave it up for the Dao. It is among the youngest serious projects in the region.
The Dao is Portugal's most classical red wine region: a granite plateau in the centre of the country, ringed by mountains that shelter it from both Atlantic rain and Spanish heat, at altitudes of 400 to 500 metres. Those conditions give wines of finer structure and higher acidity than the Douro produces, and the region has long been called the Burgundy of Portugal, which overstates the resemblance but points in the right direction.
Touriga Nacional originated here rather than in the Douro, and Encruzado is the Dao's own white grape and one of the finest in Portugal, capable of real ageing. Alfrocheiro and Jaen, the latter being Mencia under another name, complete the red blends.
