2018 Touriga Nacional
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Tasting notes
Full bottle1,443 g. 35-year-old Touriga Nacional. Destemmed and lightly crushed. Fermented in temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks. Once the alcoholic fermentation is completed, the juice is gently pressed and ages 18 months in French oak. TA 5.6 g/l, pH 3.56. Bottled January 2020. Very dark with a purplish rim. Soaring aroma of pure, floral-scented dark fruit and that lovely bergamot note that is so typical of this variety in its pristine state. Even more scented the day after opening. Definitely worth decanting if you drink this in its youth. There's also a more savoury quality from the oak. On the palate, mouth-filling with compact tannins and with a deliciously dry texture even with all this fruit. Smells rocky like those Douro terraces. Refined even in youth. Long, fine-boned finish even though its a powerful wine. Lots of freshness too but perhaps not quite as fresh and dry as the Touriga Franca. Fuller-bodied and more assertive. (JH)
Critic scores
Average Score
Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
Mark Squires
More reviews and scores
The 2018 Touriga Nacional was aged for 16 to 18 months, depending on which of two plots, in 90% new oak. It comes in at just 14.6% alcohol. More flavorful and aromatic than its sibling, the Touriga Franca, this is otherwise along the same lines. This Touriga Nacional maintains the Franca's mid-palate finesse, as well as the feeling it projects that it is the crushed essence of the grape. There's a little oak present, but not as much as you might think. This, too, will absorb the oak even better with a couple of years in the cellar, but the wood is very well handled. It is not really intrusive even now, and there is no "drenched in vanilla" demeanor at all. The tannins are very ripe, but with aeration this becomes much firmer on the finish, proving that it has the structure to age. Of all of Crasto's upper-level wines this report, it is probably this that most leans to hedonism, thanks to the aromatics and flavor, yet it is still very elegant and carefully crafted. It is never a sloppy fruit bomb. This succulent and enticing Touriga Nacional is impossible to resist, even today, but you will definitely be rewarded if you give it a few years of age to become more expressive. There were just 9,113 bottles produced, plus some larger format bottles.