#NWTW: Touriga Nacional
New Wine This Week: Touriga Nacional
This is week 6 in #NewWineThisWeek, a fun ongoing social media event open to all. All you need to do is find out what the wine of the week is, try it, and tweet or vote. Join up!
The new wine this week is Touriga Nacional, a major grape in Portugese wines including port. In recent years, Portugese winemakers have been branching out from exclusive port production to table wines as well.
Touriga Nacional: super dark red with a beautiful rim color
Pairing Challenge
The next challenge was to choose a meal for a wine I had never had before. Portugal is a warm climate, so I knew it would be a pretty big red, and it sounded like it would be tannic as well. Big tannic red wines just love rare grilled meat, so I opted for goat chops.
Blind pairing: goat chops, roasted cauliflower and acorn squash
UDACA – Union of Cooperative Cellars from Dao Touriga Nacional 2008 ($20 at France 44)
Eye: Very dark purple red
Nose: Rich dark fruit, with floral notes
Mouth: Ripe fruit, tart acidity AND very tannic. A bit grapey. A real bruiser in a good way! With goat chops from the grill, all the fruit emerges and the wine pairs wonderfully with the meal.
UDACA Touriga Nacional, a powerhouse red
Meal Details
In my last visit to the winter Mill City Farmers Market, I told Kate of Singing Hills Goat Dairy how much we had enjoyed the goat chili. She suggested I try some of their goat chops, and I couldn’t resist. I still like cooking meals from scratch, but on a weeknight, I want something easy and pretty quick.
Grilled Goat Chops with Roasted Squash and Cauliflower
Ingredients
- 4 goat chops (they’re quite small)
- 1/2 cup red wine (dinner wine is great)
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 Tbsp chopped rosemary
- 1 Tbsp chopped thyme
- 1 acorn squash, cut in 1/2
- 1 Tbsp maple syrup
- 6 cauliflower florets, quartered
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
Instructions
- Mix the red wine, honey, olive oil, rosemary and thyme and marinate the chops for 30 minutes
- Preheat oven to 425°F
- Cut the acorn squash in 1/2, drizzle the maple syrup in each cavity
- Toss the cauliflower and onions with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and balsmamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste
- Roast the squash and cauliflower in the oven for 30-45 minutes
- Pre-heat grill or broiler
- Grill the chops, 3 minutes per side for medium-rare
Earthy roasted vegetables and grilled goat chops are a great pairing for Touriga Nacional
foodwineclick 
Jeff, Your food and wine is delectable and its inspiring to see what you pair and share. I was just wondering what Jeff would you serve with unicorn?
Lorri, I never knew you were such a wine geek; unicorn wine of course!
here’s a definition: http://www.winespectator.com/blogs/show/id/49106
I’m not sure what part of the unicorn the wine comes from…
I am certainly going to give this a go… It sounds amazing!
It’s worth a go; very powerful but not at all jammy or over-extracted.