In this time of Covid, our normal travel adventures have been restricted. And maybe we have let ourselves be even more limited by lack of imagination and failure to “debrouiller”. For many years, Jacqueline and I have incorporated wine touring into our travel plans. Although wine touring is almost never the only or even the main reason for our trips, it is almost always an important and enjoyable part for us. What to do?
We have never been to Portugal ,although we have talked about making a trip there for years. Additionally, I have recently become aware of my lack of even superficial knowledge of Portuguese wines. I realized that I can partially address both (but especially the latter) right from my armchair. And unlike our usual trips, wine will be the main focus of this one. Stay tuned.
When this madness is over, the Douro should be the most varied, most interesting and most comfortable place for a trip among these lands, as several threads in the travel subforum will testify. Quinta de Ventozelo’s infrastructure is top notch, and their pre-pandemic public had a strong North American bent.
I too plan vacations around wine country(s). At least one trip a year is spent somewhere we can visit wineries. We will generally mix the trip up with other activities as well. A day playing golf, or just site seeing, hiking, etc… Portugal was not on the list until recently. We watched a show on Amazon Prime a few weeks ago. “A Year in Port”. The Douro Valley looks to be a terrific place to visit if this show is even remotely accurate.
2019 Aveleda “Fonte” Vinho Verde (Branco)
Starting off my travels in the Vinho Verde region with this basic bottle from Aveleda, which is one of the biggest producers and exporters in the region. The first sip of this wine actually made me smile. Sweetly tart citrus for certain, and hints of plum and melon as well. Slightest of slight effervescence. Acidic enough to be refreshing, but not enough to bite. Lingering dryish fruit and mineral aftertaste. Easy drinking at 9.5% ABV. Very tasty and enjoyable. Perfect hot weather wine and a good match for tonight’s Meyer-lemoned shrimp scampi over pasta. Recommended. ~$10
“Deconstructing" Vinho Verde
I have never thought of Vinho Verde as more than a refreshing, inexpensive white wine, usually lowish in alcohol, sometimes slightly effervescent, sometimes a bit (too) acidic. The white Vinho Verde that I have known is a blend of grape varieties. I was surprised to learn how many different varieties are actually allowed in the blend. The Aveleda Fonte above is made up of four varieties: Loureiro,Trajadura, Arinto, Fernão Pires. Over recent decades, there has been a move towards making wine entirely from a single grape variety to highlight the “more serious” stand-alone possibilities of some of the grapes, and also to broaden and enhance the market for the wines of the region. In my travels, I managed to find a few examples of these “varietal” Vinho Verde to try. Here’s one. 2019 Soalheiro Alvarinho Monção e Melgaço Vinho Verde
100% Alvarinho from the Monção e Melgaço Vinho sub region of Vinho Verde, just across the Minho River from Spain’s Rias Baixas. I have enjoyed a few Albarino from Rias Baixa over the past year or so and am a fan. I looked forward to trying this bottle. I liked this Portuguese Alvarinho a lot, and to me it is different from the Spanish versions. The sample size is very small(n=3, n=1), but that is not going to stop me from generalizing about differences that may or may not be (generally) true. I recall the taste of the Spanish versions as being very exhuberant in flavor. Ripe, acidic and tasty. This Soalheiro offering, in contrast, presents itself more subdued, but it is delightful to my palate. It reminds me of a Riesling in the balance of its fruit, mineral, acid with a light touch of sweetness, though the taste profiles are very different between Riesling and Alvarinho/Albarino. There is a lingering citrus and fruit aftertaste here that I particularly enjoyed. 12.5% ABV. Highly Recommended. ~$25
P.S. 12/30/20 Finished the bottle with a dinner of lime/cilantro chicken with rice and beans. Muito boa comida e vinho!
Great choice, Jim. I love the ‘fruitiness’ of the Soalheiro house style, which translates itself into that ‘sweetness’ you mentioned, but always with balance and poise. Definitely one of the main go to producers for varietal Alvarinho (though blends of Alvarinho with Loureiro and Trajadura can be equally ‘serious’).
I have never truly understood the Alvarinho vs. Albariño debate. Joana Santiago (from Quinta de Santiago) and Nuno do Ó recently came out with a very acidic Alvarinho which is meant to be closer to Rias Baixas Albariño, but I’ve also heard other folks comment on how much more fruity Albariño is, and so forth. I think people might simply be making judgements based on which producers they’re drinking and how their palate informs them. It’s the exact same grape and it’s clearly well suited to both banks of the Minho/Miño.
I have never tasted an aged wine from them, but I have heard this circumstancially from a critic who was at a big tasting. The older wines got the top scores. I confess I find it hard to imagine given the house style.
Portugal has sparkling wine too! I am going to interrupt my posts on “Deconstructing Vinho Verde” with this note on a nice Portuguese sparkling wine that we enjoyed on New Year’s Eve. 2019 Caves São João Espumante Bruto Rosé (Portugal)
This is a very dry sparkling rose. Beautiful pale salmon. More spice than fruit to my palate. Bright fruit. Mineral. Nice acidity. Medium bubbles speaking up, but not aggressively. This wine took a little while to adjust to since it followed a knockout, fruity sweet, sparking wine from California. As we continued drinking this Portuguese wine, we got along very well. Solid sparkler for ~$20 that is worth trying. Recommended.
This sparkling wine is made from 60% Barga and 40% Touriga-Nacional. I have learned elsewhere that red grape Barga is THE grape of the Bairrada “region” and I had also seen reviews of other vintages of this wine that gave its origin as Bairrada. But Bairrada was not listed anywhere on the label, instead I saw “Beira Atlântico IGP”. In exploring this terminology, I got an introductory lesson in Portuguese wine labelling. Bairrada is a DOC (Denominação de Origem Controlada) with strict rules for grape sourcing and yields. This DOC is within the Beira Atlântico IGP (Indicação Geográfica Protegida), which are regional wine area with less stringent requirements. So my guess would be that for this vintage anyway, this wine’s grape sourcing or yields did not meet the stricter requirements to be labelled as Bairrada DOC.
Sparkling wine is, in fact, Bairrada’s number one produce, and one with more domestic commercial success than their table wines. It is traditionally paired with the region’s ‘leitão’ (suckling pig). Some Bairrada producers are mostly known for their sparkling wine (like the Caves São Domingos, whose back vintages of the reds I really like), but the Caves São João are the opposite. I would say they are mostly famous for their huge portfolio of mature still wines, with vintages down to the 1960s being sold directly from the winery.
You are correct on the DOC/IGP distinction. A lot of excellent wines get ‘downgraded’ to IGP because of factors that do not relate to quality, like a non-approved grape variety, and it takes some knowledge to tell the wheat from the chaff. For instance, Herdade do Esporão’s Torre, a premium wine they have only produced three times in the estate’s history and one of the three most expensive wines in Alentejo, was not considered DOC for the 2011 vintage because of the use of Touriga Franca, a Douro grape.
“Deconstructing" Vinho Verde, Part 2 . . . 2019 Quinta do Ameal Loureiro (Vinho Verde)
Here is a wine of 100% Loureiro, made by a winery less than three decades old that was started with the idea of highlighting the possibilities of the grape from the Lima River Valley area of Vinho Verde. The nose is clean citrus with flowers. The first taste offers a jolt of sizzling lime-lemon with a slippery mineral mouthfeel. An herbal component surfaces as the wine transitions to the finish which is very attractive and lingers into the aftertaste where it is joined by flowery notes. The wine is made in stainless steel and spends several months on the fine lees. The word “steel” comes to my mind as I drink this wine. This is their mainstay and most “classical” Loureiro offering and is considered one of the benchmarks for 100% Loureiro. They also produce a wine with oak maturation, a “single vineyard” offering and even a wine produced from raisin-ed grapes. All 100% Loureiro! We enjoyed the wine by itself and with a simple pan seared hogfish filet seasoned with herbs, lemon and butter. I liked this wine very much. 11% ABV. ~$18. Recommended.
“Deconstructing" Vinho Verde, Part 3
We continue travelling southward in Vinho Verde to find this example of a 100% Avesso. Perhaps a little less known than Alvarinho and Loureiro in the Vinho Verde mono-variety scene, Avesso is regarded by some (in the know?) as a very promising stand-alone wine. 2019 Quinta da Raza Avesso (Vinho Verde)
Well, well, well . . . One of these varieties is not like the others, and it is definitely this one! Acid goes to the background with this wine, and ripe, fairly exuberant fruit takes center stage. Maybe a trace of citrus, but plum and stone fruit are more prominent to my palate. Big mouthfeel. I’ll repeat the word “exuberant”, but this becomes reigned in with food. (in our case cheese, baguette and prosciutto). Coincidentally, we had enough Loueriro left over from a few days ago for a small glass each and this provided a fairly dramatic “compare and contrast”. The Loueriro compared to the Avesso was lighter, more flowery, and herbal with a dryish lime-lemon citrus. The Avesso was a big hit with my wife. I liked this Avesso, but also liked the Loueriro. I tried a little blending of the two with so-so results- Anselmo Mendes has no worries (for now). Another surprise was the higher alcohol level at 13.5%. Highly Recommended ~$17.
That’s Avesso alright. Perhaps not an AFWE approved variety, but I love its richness and unctuousness (to no discredit of Alvarinho and Loureiro in any way). The Vinho Verde subregions it hails from (Cinfães, Baião, Resende) are also not as wet and cool as the rest of the region. One of the best producers of Avesso, Quinta da Covela (where I had the pleasure of being on holidays eight years ago) is right at the border between the Vinhos Verdes and Douro DOPs.
