The Touriga Nacional is Portugal’s most famous grape. Normally used to make port, Churchill’s Touriga Nacional Douro is one of the rare instances in which it’s used to make wine, and the result is a really intense red that’s so dark it’s violet. Wine Spectator called it one of the “Top Wines of 2009″ and wrote, “The finish of chocolate mousse and café au lait is long and mouth-filling.”

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We looked long and hard to find a wine to replace our beloved Pinotage and this is the only one we felt was worthy of filling its shoes.

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Touriga Nacional is the most highly-stressed vine in the wine world. Growing in environments that resemble Hell (blast-furnace heat, lots of hard rocks, no soft soil, no rain) these stressed-out vines barely manage to squeeze out a few bunches of black grapes each year, grapes that range in size from small to tiny. Scientists are working on ways to make it more prolific, but usually the Touriga Nacional spends so much time at violin practice, then going to flamenco dance class, cooking dinner, working a second job and making sure everyone has clean clothes for the next day that it collapses into a screaming pile of hysteria when people poke at it. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” It howls. “I’m doing the best I can!!!!”

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A typical vineyard for Touriga Nacional grapes.

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But these few ebony pearls are highly valued and if you’re making a fancy port that’s destined to be quaffed in the billiards room of some British gentleman’s club located in Leicester Square where the Empire is discussed over cigars, then you want some Touriga Nacional in your barrels. It’s only in recent years that some port producers have started making wine out of Touriga Nacional, and with their thick skins these grapes produce extremely intense wines. The kind that Really! Want! To Know! How! You! Are!

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Touriga Nacional grapes.

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Just as a diamond is coal that’s been put under enormous pressure, Churchill’s Touriga Nacional Douro is like a Cabernet Sauvignon that’s been put under pressure. The first thing that smacks you in the face when you sniff it is a big bunch of basil that jumps up out of the glass and pops you right in the nose. Take a sip and this thick, powerful wine crawls down your throat like summer berry sludge. But it’s not sweet. In fact, it’s so full of the mineral flavor of the schist in which it grows that it almost tastes salty. Drinking Churchill’s Touriga Nacional Douro is like crunching up a mouthful of rocks and berries that have been smoked over a volcano. In a good way.

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