Old Mill Estate Touriga Nacional 2007

I’m inching my way toward a century of varietal wines, and this puts me at 70/100.  I’ve actually hit 90 different grapes in total, but there are some grapes, Pinot Meunier for instance, which are only rarely found outside of a blend.  (Great Western apparently does a good one.) Today’s wine is another example of a variety that’s very easy to find in a blend, but much less common on its own, the Old Mill Estate Touriga Nacional 2007.

Like most people, I first encountered Touriga Nacional when learning about fortified wines.  It’s a black grape, thought to be native to the Dão region of Portugal, and widely considered the best of the five main grapes allowed in Port.  While it is typically the first grape mentioned with regard to Port production, what’s slightly less well known is that within the Douro Valley it represents a tiny fraction of plantings, possibly as low as 2%.  Many vineyards are field blends with different varieties intermingled, so it’s often difficult to know exactly.

It is highly regarded for the rich colour and intense concentration it brings to blends as well as structure through its high levels of tannins.  However, despite being a vigorous vine, it is traditionally prone to low yields due to poor fruit set, which may be why it is not the most popular variety in the vineyard.  Clonal selection improvements had mitigated the low yields to some extent, and the grape has been making inroads into other wine regions within Portugal as well as Australia.  While best known as a component of fortified wine, there is a growing trend for it to be made into table wine.

This is the second post in this blog concerning a wine from Langhorne Creek, the first having been the Rusticana Zinfandel back in April, which has some detail on the region.

Old Mill Estate, as shown by the sheaf on the label, actually does have its origins in grain production.  The property was initially a mill, making chaff out of lucerne.  (That’s alfalfa to Americans – I had to look it up.)  In 1992 the second highest recorded flood in the area destroyed the entire crop, prompting the owners, Peter and Vicki Widdop, to diversify by planting vines the following year.  They initially started just as grape growers, but produced their own vintage in 2004.  In 2006 they brought in John Glaetzer, something of an Australian legend, as a consultant winemaker.

I’m not sure if they still grow lucerne, but their grape plantings consist of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Touriga Nacional.  Their wines include still, red varietals of each and a couple of blends, as well as a rosé and a sparkling wine both made from Touriga Nacional.

This wine is clear and bright in the glass, with a deep purple colour and quick stained legs.  On the nose it’s clean, intense, and developing, with notes of raisins, plums, and sweet spice.  It’s a very rich nose with ripe fruit.  On the palate it’s dry, though heavily fruit sweet, with a medium plus body, medium plus intensity, medium alcohol, medium minus fine tannins, medium acidity, and medium plus length. There are notes of plum, sweet spice, black cherries, blackberries, and raisins.

This is a good wine – intensely fragrant, with great concentration and fruit flavours, though the acidity struggles to maintain balance.  It’s very full and rich, almost too much so.  I was told a story by a colleague about how he was so impressed when he first tasted Touriga Nacional as a table wine that he asked the winemaker why it wasn’t more popular.  The reply was along the lines of “try to drink a bottle”.  I feel similarly with this wine – it does have a fantastic impact but it’s somewhat overwhelming after a glass or two.  Still, I’d rather be overwhelmed than underwhelmed.

Rusticana Langhorne Creek Zinfandel 2009

Over the holiday weekend I went down to Langhorne Creek to hit a few cellar doors, and in addition to bringing home a few bottles, I had a glass of this wine with a nice platter.  The wine of today is the Rusticana Langhorne Creek Zinfandel 2009.

This is a bit of an odd combination, in that I’m looking at both a wine from Langhorne Creek and a Zinfandel.  What’s odd is that I’ve covered neither before.  I don’t say that in the same way it would be odd if I hadn’t covered a wine from Bordeaux or a Chardonnay, but still, both are reasonably well known to me, so much so that I put it down to overlooking them. First, the region.

Langhorne Creek is a region of South Australia, roughly 65km southeast of Adelaide.  It’s odd to me that I haven’t written about one of its wines before because it was one of the first wine regions I ever visited.  First things first: there is no creek that goes by the name Langhorne; rather there is the Bremer River.  In the 1840s there was a cattleman named Alfred Langhorne, and he gave his name to a property called Langhorne’s Station, a cattle destination.  Where the cattle crossed the river became known as Langhorne’s Crossing, which has in turn evolved into Langhorne Creek.

Grape vines have been cultivated in the region since the mid 19th century, with the founding of Bleasdale by Frank Potts, which is the only winery to have operated continuously since then.  Even today there exist vines that date to the 19th century.  The region is historically known for its red wines, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz which make up roughly 70% of production.  However, there are a number of lesser planted varieties which do well in the region, with the Bleasdale Malbecs coming to mind immediately as one of the longest established.  Zonte’s Footstep makes wine from a dozen varieties, and has likely that number again growing in test rows so see how they take to the terroir, but they are far from the only producers with interesting varieties.  If you look closely, there are plantings of Lagrein, Nebbiolo, Petit Verdot, Viognier, Chenin Blanc, and many others, including some Touriga Nacional.

Langhorne Creek is a temperate Mediterranean climate, with close proximity to Lake Alexandrina which forms the southern border of the region moderating temperatures.  Rain comes in the winter and temperatures during the growing seasons are somewhat cooler than McLaren Vale to the west.  However, what sets Langhorne Creek apart most from other regions is the soil.  The original vineyards of the area are set in an alluvial flood plain.  The soil is rich and fertile with a thick layer of topsoil that has built up over time through deposits from the lake and rivers.  The area is still prone to floods, though there are more controlled systems of irrigation in use as well.

However, I have to say that for having just driven through it, there’s not a whole lot there other than vines.  While there are a handful of cellar doors and a few restaurants, the area is traditionally more associated with grape growing than winemaking.  Between that and the fact that it’s further from Adelaide than McLaren Vale, it hasn’t been as big a draw as some of the better known regions that surround Adelaide.

Zinfandel is an old favourite of mine from when I used to live in California, before I had undertaken any wine studies.  It’s believed to originate in Croatia, though with a somewhat convoluted history that had it being cultivated under that name in California and as Primitivo in southern Italy.  As is typically the case with such confusion, the University of California, Davis, settled things with DNA analysis.  There is a winery in McLaren Vale, Kangarilla Road, that produces both a Zinfandel and a Primitivo and the difference between the two wines is down to different regions and different winemaking techniques.  A bit gimmicky, but appealing to a wine/grape geek such as myself.

A red grape, it has thin-skinned berries and suffers from uneven ripening in its compact bunches.  The uneven ripening is particularly tricky with Zinfandel, as soon after individual grapes are ripe, they start to raisin, meaning there can be unripe and shriveled grapes in the same bunch.  Also, as with so many varieties, it can be at its worst in hot climates with high yields, but can produce wines of high quality with low yields under cooler conditions with a long time to ripen.  (I could buy another nice bottle of Krug if I had a dollar for every time I read that in a description of a variety.)  It tends to perform at its best on well drained hillside sites with good drainage, and under warm but not too warm conditions.

Rusticana Wines’ first vintage was in 2003 from vines across 25 acres that date back to the early 1990s.  They make Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Durif and this Zinfandel from their own vines, and produce a Sauvignon Blanc and a Pinot Grigio from locally sourced grapes.  Their wine is made by a consultant winemaker operating out of a local winery.  Really though, the couple that run the business are the proprietors of Newman’s Horseradish, a South Australian icon since 1947.  They moved the horseradish business from Tea Tree Gully to Langhorne Creek in 1985 and it seems that somewhere along the way they picked up land/vines and decided that it was a better business making and selling wine than just selling grapes, which is both fair enough and not uncommon.

This wine was a dark, brick red in the glass with quick, thick legs.  On the nose, it was clean, with a developing character of medium plus intensity.  I got sweet spice, red currant, dried red fruit, and potpourri on the nose.  On the palate it was dry, though with fruit sweetness (not residual sugar), medium acidity, medium fine tannins, with medium plus body, intensity, and alcohol.  I picked up dried red fruit, white pepper, and gingerbread.  It had a medium minus length, with a plum finish.

This is a good wine – certainly no faults, and with good intensity and acidity.  All their reds, with the exception of one Shiraz bottling, were above 15% ABV for the vintage they were pouring, but I’m the type of guy who isn’t put off by high alcohol wines.  I enjoyed it and bought a bottle which I’m sure will benefit from a year or two in the cellar.  I also picked up a bottle of their Durif, which I likewise enjoyed last night, but alas I’m trying to avoid writing about the same winery twice if I can avoid it.