Insurgente Dão Tinto 2016

Lua Cheia em Vinhas Velhas, which translates as “full moon in old vines,” is the collaboration of three experienced Portuguese wine professionals: João Silva e Sousa, Francisco Baptista, and Manual Dias. After many years of buying grapes to make their wine, they bought their own small (25-acre) vineyard in 2009. Dão, among the oldest DOC wine regions in Portugal (1908), is located between the Mondego and the Dão rivers in the Northern-Central part of the country, a extremely mountainous region with a temperate climate. The vineyard region herein is located primarily on a plateau that is sheltered on three sides by the granite mountain ranges of Serra da Estrela, Serra do Caramulo and Serra da Nave. Made from a blend of the native grapes touriga nacional and alfrocheiro, "Insurgente" reflects the hot, dry, granitic soils of the Dão, where the vines must fight for every bit of water. The resulting wine is elegant and complex, with an intense nose of dark fruit and pine-wood. A rustic character in the mouth yields more ripe fruit flavors before a lingering, lightly balsamic finish wraps things up.