Touriga emerges from Port
From deep in Portugal's shadows, the black grape touriga is emerging into the California sunshine, finding a tentative yet encouraging new home.
Historically, touriga has constituted the heart and soul of the robust red dessert wine Port.
Before we proceed, however, a point of clarification: "Touriga" here is used as shorthand for "touriga nacional," one of several members of a large, varied and scattered family of Portuguese wine grapes that also includes touriga franca, touriga macho and touriga fina.
What's more, federal regulations for wine labels in the United States recognize only "touriga" as a varietal name, none of its cousins.
At any rate, while touriga, or touriga nacional, provides the foundation for fine Port, it also is used in Portugal's Dao region for a firm and spicy red table wine.
That's how California winemaker Jeff Runquist is using the grape. Runquist's winery is in Amador County's Shenandoah Valley, but he looks well beyond the foothills for vineyards that produce fruit from which he feels he can make special wines. Thus, his portfolio includes cabernet sauvignon from Paso Robles and pinot noir from Napa Valley.
When he began to expand his lineup a few years ago, he didn't have to look far beyond the foothills to find exotic grape varieties with which to experiment. Just outside of Galt in Sacramento County, where the Valley floor starts to buckle into the foothills, Ron Silva is cultivating several blocks of traditional Iberian grape varieties.
Today, Runquist is making wine with five of them, including tempranillo, tannat and grenache. So far, touriga looks to be the most promising. For one, the Jeff Runquist Wines 2009 Lodi Alta Mesa Silvaspoons Vineyard Touriga recently won the grand championship at the Pacific Rim International Wine Competition in San Bernardino. It beat out more than 1,400 wines for the honor.
It did so largely on its authority and complexity. The wine is concentrated with rich fruit flavors that, while intense, are more lively than heavy. The wine also is shot through with intriguing spiciness, mostly from the brown end of the spice spectrum – cinnamon, allspice, clove. This is a big wine, dense with color and firm with tannins, yet it possesses Runquist's signature touches – lush fruit, ready accessibility and generous oak, which gives the wine a seductive suggestion of sweetness.
Runquist's curiosity about touriga was aroused when Fenestra Winery of Livermore tied for a best-of-class award at the 2005 California State Fair commercial wine competition with its 2003 touriga made with fruit from Silvaspoons Vineyard.
"I tasted the wine at the Grape and Gourmet tasting, and was impressed and intrigued by it," recalled Runquist. "My recollection is that the Fenestra wine had a bright and rich black-fruit flavor with terrific color, yet not a whole lot of coarse or astringent tannin.
"In other words, it was smack dab in the middle of my 'sweet spot.' When I discovered that Ron Silva grew the grapes, I asked him if I could try two tons. Sure enough, the grapes worked well for me, too."
This is Runquist's fourth vintage with touriga. Each of his first three vintages, starting with the 2006, has won a silver medal at the California State Fair's commercial wine competition. Runquist is encouraged by acceptance of his touriga, despite the varietal's rarity, and is ramping up production. He expects to bottle about 500 cases from last fall's harvest.
Silva tends 8 acres of touriga. It's part of a 32- acre vineyard planted solely to varieties traditionally used for Port. At the outset, he envisioned vintners buying grapes in roughly the same proportions in which he planted them for fortified dessert wines emulating Port. That's never happened, however, as winemakers chose one variety or another for varietal wines or blends of their own creation.
Though more vintners are showing interest in his touriga, Silva isn't sure whether he will expand his plantings. For one, touriga is a vigorous vine that demands a lot of attention with respect to irrigation, trellising and thinning.
For another, demand also is rising for a couple of his other minor varieties, tannat and souzao, so he may enlarge his plots devoted to them before getting to touriga.