Our Touriga & Tintas looks toward the sun-baked schist slopes of the Douro Valley. But the blend of Touriga, Tinta Cão and Tinta Roriz speak entirely of their home: the cool, elevated red-soiled landscape of New England, NSW.
Our 2024 Touriga & Tintas blend is a vivid expression of our love for the Iberian Peninsula. Australia built a reputation on varieties like Shiraz from the Rhône, Cabernet from Bordeaux, Riesling from the Rhine. But it is yet to fully embrace the extraordinary wealth of the Iberian Peninsula: the grape varieties of Portugal and Spain that thrive in warm days, cool nights, and well-draining soils, and that make wines of a complexity and depth.
The Grapes: A Portuguese Trio with a Long History
The name says it all. “Touriga” refers to Touriga Nacional — the most revered red grape in Portugal, the cornerstone of vintage Port and increasingly the basis for exceptional dry table wines. “Tintas” is the collective term for a cluster of Portuguese red varieties traditionally used alongside it: in Topper’s Mountain’s case, this includes Tinta Cão, a prized Indigenous grape from the Douro, alongside Tinta Roriz (the Portuguese name for Tempranillo, also grown extensively in the Iberian Peninsula under various aliases).
In Portugal, Touriga Nacional is prized for its small, intensely concentrated berries, its deep colour, its powerful tannins, and its distinctive floral aromatics — particularly violets and dried roses — which are almost unique among red varieties. When made as a dry table wine, it produces something with the structure of a great Cabernet and the aromatic complexity of something altogether wilder. Tinta Cão adds texture, freshness, and spice. Together, they create a wine with many layers and beautiful longevity.
Why are these varieties so rare in Australia? Partly history, Australia’s wine tradition was shaped by British and German settlers who brought the varieties they knew. Partly climate assumptions — people assumed Portugal’s varieties required heat, not realising that in the Douro, altitude and cool nights play a significant role in balancing the warmth of the days.
And partly simple inertia. There is no commercial pressure to plant Touriga Nacional in Australia when you can plant Shiraz or Cab and sell it tomorrow.
At Topper’s Mountain Wines, we planted these varieties because we believed they would thrive in our specific conditions – and they have.
Amphora and Extended Skin Contact
What makes the current Touriga & Tintas particularly fascinating is not just what’s in the blend, but how it’s made. Inspired by ancient Georgian and Roman traditions, Topper’s Mountain has worked with qvevri. These are traditional clay amphorae; large clay vessels buried or semi-buried in the earth to ferment and age the wine with extended skin contact.
Extended skin maceration extracts tannin, colour, and texture differently from conventional winemaking. The wines emerge with a structured, almost architectural quality — tannins that feel woven into the wine rather than applied on top of it. The amphora itself adds nothing flavour-wise (unlike oak barrels), instead acting as a neutral but porous vessel that allows gentle micro-oxygenation and a slow, natural evolution of the wine over the contact period.
The result is a wine inspired by tradition but informed by contemporary practices. A style that is increasingly celebrated at the forefront of Australian wine culture.
Tasting the Topper’s Mountain Touriga & Tintas
The 2024 vintage Touriga & Tintas is handpicked and fully destemmed. Spontaneously fermented in ceramic eggs with thirty days extended maceration and gentle hand-plunging. Maturation for eight months in ceramic eggs. Bottled without fining and filtration. Straight forward, minimal intervention winemaking!
This is a wine for those who enjoy their reds with depth and texture rather than sweetness.
Touriga & Tintas at the Table
Portuguese food is the obvious pairing point, but this wine has broader ambitions.
- Slow-roasted lamb with cumin, coriander and preserved lemon — the spice notes in the wine echo beautifully with North African or Middle Eastern spices on lamb
- Beef cheeks braised in red wine and bay leaves — the wine’s tannin structure cuts through the richness while the fruit matches the depth of long-braised meat
- Grilled sardines with charred bread and tomato — a genuinely Portuguese combination that works with the wine’s structure and herbaceous quality
- Manchego or aged hard cheeses — aged sheep’s milk cheese with the wine’s tannins is a classic Iberian combination
- Charcuterie and cured meats — particularly chorizo, blood sausage, or coppa
A Wine That Rewrites the Map
Our excitement around Topper’s Mountain Touriga & Tintas is part of a broader story unfolding in Australian wine: the recognition that this continent has climates, soils, and altitudes that are perfectly suited to varieties from southern Europe, and that the best of those wines are not imitations of their European models but genuinely new and distinct expressions.
The Topper’s Mountain Touriga & Tintas 2024 is available. As with all Topper’s Mountain wines, production is small and bottles are individually numbered. This one won’t last long.
Love the story of Iberian varieties in Australia? The Topper’s Mountain Nebbiolo explores the same philosophy from an Italian perspective — high altitude, volcanic soils, and a grape that demands the best from both site and grower. And if you want to explore the full range of Topper’s Mountain Finder wines, head to the shop.
