"A vintage fortified that nicely preserves the elegant, aromatic nature of the grape while presenting a fresh young wine that will benefit from further ageing. Shows attractive violet notes with plum, chocolate, blackstrap licorice and spice. Youthful, fresh and spirity warm." Jeni Port, Halliday Wine Companion.
Food Matches: The Barrel Select Vintage Touriga is best served as an aperitif on a cold winter's night. It also perfectly matches a Blue cheese, with my recommendation being the local Adelaide Hills Onkaparinga Creamery Blue. Another great match for the Vintage Touriga is the Koko Black Dark Chocolate range, my favourite being the Dark Chocolate Rocky Rogue.
In the vineyard the Touriga grapes were left to ripen to a higher beaume than was picked for table wine production. This allows for the accumulation of sugars and the development of varietal port characters - floral, spice and red fruits.
The grapes were crushed and destemmed, releasing the juice (this is called ‘corte’ in Portugal where groups of people tread shoulder to shoulder in unison to gently crush the berries). The crushed berries were then allowed to ferment naturally in small open fermenters, (this process is called ‘liberdade’ in Portugal - where the stompers individually move around within the vat, ensuring the grape skins are kept submerged and fresh). We lightly punched down the cap with small plungers (called ‘macacos’ in Portugal) to ensure that the cap is kept moist and anaerobic conditions.
At the point where we were able to observe optimal lifted fermentation characters and approximately two-thirds of the sugar had been converted to alcohol we stopped the fermentation by adding a light brandy spirit with an alcohol content of 78%. This causes the yeast responsible for fermentation to stop converting sugar to alcohol, preserving the perfect balance of natural sweetness, alcohol, and fragrant spicy, red and black berry fruit characters. After this process was complete, it was lightly pressed into small vats, which were settled for 48 hours, where it was racked into aged puncheons for 24 months. I was then bottled using vino-lock glass stoppers to ensure optimum quality sustainability for the next 30+ years.
Harvest Date: 25th of March 2019 Bottling Date: 11th of October 2021
Closure: Vinolock Glass Stopper Drinking Window: 2021 -2050
Alcohol: 18.2% Vegan Friedly: Yes Volume: 500 ml
Awards and Accolades:
- 91 points Halliday Wine Companion
Individually numbered bottles from 1 to 3,498.
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Per Bottle:$49.99
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