Touriga Franca

Touriga Franca is the most widely planted red grape of Portugal's Douro Valley and one of the backbone varieties of both Port and the region's dry "Douro reds." Less concentrated and more perfumed than its illustrious relative Touriga Nacional, it earns its place through fragrance, generous red-and-black fruit and a firm but supple structure that lends colour, tannin and staying power to a blend. Floral and aromatic — lifted violet, rose and rockrose over ripe cherry, plum and blackberry — it is the reliable workhorse of the terraced Douro slopes: high-yielding, heat- and drought-tolerant, late-ripening, and prized for the elegance and lift it brings to the field blends that define the valley.