Taboadella Villae Dão Red 2019

The 2019 Taboadella Villae Dão Red (91 Points – Wine Enthusiast) is a unique blend of indigenous Portuguese grape varieties (40% Tinta Roriz, 20% Jaen, 20% Tinta Pinheira, 10% Alfrocheiro, 10% Touriga Nacional) that could rightly serve as a poster child for Dão’s modern style of hedonistic red wine. The artfully blended 2019 Taboadella Villae Dão sports a brilliant ruby and sapphire robe, an intoxicating aroma, and plenty of lush fruit and bright acidity to make our tasting panel members sit up and literally beg for more. A preponderance of cherry, plum, and ripe red fruit flavors wrapped in silky tannins fill the mouth and satiate the senses. Wow! Luscious and downright hedonistic, yet bright and energetic, 2019 Taboadella Villae is one intoxicating red. A clean and racy finish with a refreshing touch of minerality makes this our new favorite go-to red wine. For optimal enjoyment, afford the 2019 Taboadella Villae a few minutes of aeration and enjoy it with abandon at cool room temperature (58°-62° F). Anticipated maturity: 2021-2026.

Portugal’s seafaring tradition and spice trade coupled with an enviable position between the sea and the mountains have endowed Portugal with a rich and diverse diet. So what does one serve with a delicious red wine such as the 2019 Taboadella Villae Dão? How about just about anything? Poultry and pork dishes provide especially good companionship. A perfectly grilled pork tenderloin in a fresh ginger, lime, and soy sauce makes a splendid companion. Add a tasty orzo salad with garbanzo beans, basil, mint, and red onion for an added kick. A tender, juicy veal chop atop a hearty wild mushroom risotto provides another splendid accompaniment. Portugal’s rendition of Iberian ham from the same little black pigs that proliferate throughout the Iberian Peninsula makes a fine pairing, as do Portugal’s rich, smoky sausages wrapped in slices of thick country bread with roasted vegetables. Even some of Portugal’s heady fish dishes will work with a cool glass of Taboadella’s delicious and versatile 2019 Villae red. Enjoy!

Portugal has a rich tradition of cheese making and remains a cheese lover’s heaven. Taboadella’s 2019 Villae Dão makes an ideal companion to the country’s cow, goat, and sheep’s milk cheeses as well as to a variety of international cheeses. Portugal’s Rabaçal, Évora, and full-bodied Queijo de São Jorge cheeses provide especially tasty accompaniments to this wine. Morbier, Comté, Manchego, and many other flavorful cheeses from around the world make equally fine companions. For additional wine and cheese pairings or to discover more about the world’s finest cheeses, join us at www.cheesemonthclub.com.

Taboadella, nestled in the heart of the Dão between mountains of pine, chestnut, and cork oak, has been a place full of life and character for millennia. This ancient settlement alongside the Ribeira das Fontainhas dates to the first century when a Roman villa, winery, granary, and assorted other buildings occupied present day Taboadella. Taboadella’s prominence re-emerged again in the 13th century when it came under the auspices of the Knights Templar. In 1504 it received a formal charter from Portugal’s King Manuel and subsequently became the domain of several knighted families until being acquired by its present owners, the Amorim family.

The Amorims have been involved in wine since 1870 when they began negotiating cork sales to Port producers in Vila Nova de Gaia. And, although they remain one of the world’s largest suppliers of cork, they have over the last three decades committed themselves to restoring and developing wineries and vineyards of historical significance in the Alentejo, Dão, and Douro. In addition to Taboadella, the Amorims are the proprietors of the Aldea de Cima estate in the Alentejo, and one of the most respected Port lodges, Quinta Nova de Nossa Senhora do Carmo in the Douro.

Today, Luisa Amorim oversees Taboadella and the family’s other Quintas where wines and vineyards have ancestral roots and cultural importance. She has helped restore Taboadella to its original purpose as a winery, vineyard, and a place full of life and character in harmony with its surroundings. Only indigenous grape varietals such as Encruzado, Tinta Roriz (also known as Aragonez or Tempranillo), Jaen, and Touriga Nacional, among others, are cultivated at Taboadella, which enables the family to “recover from the past the essence of nature and project great wines into the future with a remarkable typicality [while] maintaining the ancestral character of the Dão.” We invite you to taste the exceptional wines of Taboadella.

Located in the north/central part of Portugal, Dão is surrounded on all sides by mountains, which shelter this important viticultural region from severe weather and provide the ideal conditions for the cultivation of Portugal’s excellent, though mostly unsung, indigenous grape varietals. The region’s high altitude vineyards grow on granite and schist soils up to nearly 3,500 feet. Dão’s high altitude makes for cool nights, slow ripening, and the propensity to produce highly aromatic wines of superior elegance and longevity.

The Dão produces both red and white wines. Dão’s signature white grape is Encruzado, a grape renowned for producing tasty white wines in a myriad of styles which range from fresh, light and supremely elegant white wines to crunchy, complex, barrel-aged versions. The region’s finest red grape variety is Touriga Nacional, which also stars as the most important grape variety in Port, Portugal’s most celebrated wine. Tinta Roriz (also known as Aragonez or Tempranillo), Jaen, Baga, Bastardo and Tinta Pinheira also figure prominently in the production of red Dão. Dão is proving to be equally adept at fashioning easy-drinking everyday reds as well as deep, sophisticated, age-worthy red wines of considerable renown.