Of the Touriga Nacionals, the Pedra Cancela 2008 stood out - dark ruby coloured with ripe red fruit flavours (raspberries with some violet), fine, grippy tannins and fairly high acidity (pic below).
Sarah Ahmed did talks "every hour, on the hour" on various aspects of Portuguese wine. I saw one on the Dao and food matching. Sarah mentioned that the high tannin and acidity mix in the Dao makes for particularly good foody wines. She described the Dao as rugged and mountainous, with elevation ranging between 200m and 900m, large diurnal temperature variation and high rainfall which means vines build up good reserves for the dry, hot summers.
I am always impressed by Portuguese wines but they still account for less than 1% of the UK off trade wine market (and most of that is Mateus Rose!) The wine-drinking public has no real image of Portuguese wine (positive or negative) and the indigenous grape varieties are perceived as hard to get to grips with. Hopefully some of their generic marketing efforts will pay off and the public will wake up to what are increasingly impressive wines. The Douro is maybe the most exciting area, and probably has the best potential for branding, on the back of consumers' regognition of Port.
