There are no reviews yet for this newly released 2022 vintage, but as you’d expect in the warmest and richest vintage since 1931, it’s just sensational.
Here’s Jancis Robinson’s take of her “Wine of the Week” 2021:
Impecável (meaning ‘impeccable’) is an extremely pure expression of Touriga Nacional from the Dão region, where it probably originated even if it is more often associated with the Douro, for both ports and table wine. In Dão it is generally blended with Jaen (known as Mencía in Spain) and/or Alfrocheiro and Tinta Roriz. It does remind me a little bit of Fitapreta’s A Touriga Vai Nua, which was my wine of the week three years ago, though Impecável is perhaps a little less sweet-fruited thanks to the cooler, more northerly vineyard site and the imprint of the Dão’s granite soils. This is deliciously floral, with a herbal freshness even though the grapes were fully destemmed, and it carries its 13% alcohol effortlessly. The tannins are silky, the whole is mouth-watering. It is fantastic quality for the price.
Really pretty floral notes. Intense fragrance and no sign of the power and oak of many varietal Tourigas. It has a herbal freshness even without any whole bunches. Tannins are beautiful – so fine. A little bit peppery, radiant with pure red fruit and yet has intensity of flavour. Silky, mouth-watering. How could anyone not enjoy this?
Indeed, she rates it equal to Raposo’s famous white Imperfeitos – whose only US retail price is a whopping $999!
Gilman loved it, too, saying:
It delivers a deep and refined bouquet of dark berries, saddle leather, cigar ash, hung game, pepper, dark soil tones and just a hint of tobacco leaf in the upper register. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and quite elegant for young Touriga Nacional, with fine depth at the core, excellent soil signature and grip, ripe, chewy tannins and excellent length on the well-balanced finish. Carlos aims for a very gentle extraction on this wine and it really shows, as it avoids some of the heaviness that one can often find in single varietal bottlings of Touriga Nacional. This will be a lovely bottle, but it will need some time in the cellar to soften up its tannins.
Of course, this 2022 vintage – only the second for this signature wine – is both richer and more flavorful and more immediately impressive: very much the product of this very warm, dry, tiny and super-concentrated year.
It’s just ravishing!
We would also note that here as so often seems to be the case (think Occhipinti in Sicily) – the most traditional methods and values (biodynamic farming, gentle extraction, wild yeast fermenting, the most minimal manipulation, and bottling unfined and unfiltered) have somehow rendered a more “modern” style of Touriga Nacional. That is, one with a purity, complexity and sheer beauty never before seen. Barolo may be an even better comparison of this. Most so-called “traditional” Barolos are rough, rustic and rather unappealing. But the very best of them (Giacosa, Giacomo Conterno, etc.) are sublime. Like this.
