best portuguese reds and best qpr

[Joseph_Grassa]

Funnily enough I had the opposite impression: that Portugal’s expansion in foreign wine markets is mostly due to inexpensive wines (which makes sense, given no other obvious competitive factor in wines with a relatively obscure origin). Obviously this also applies to Spain and Italy to some degree - particularly Spain - but those countries work with larger quantities on average, and their hold on the market goes back longer.

Also, it would seem to me that a huge number of Portuguese wines, in all price ranges, don’t get exported (or very little) due to small quantities. A lot of FitaPreta’s labels only see a few thousand bottles each vintage. Caves Messias works in larger quantities, but their greatest wine, the red Garrafeira Clássico, is a decidedly limited edition. There are many more examples of this.

Villae is Taboadella’s entry level. Perfectly lovely weekday wines, with unmistakable Dão character in both colors. Any of the other Taboadellas will benefit from cellaring. There’s provavly no need to spend huge coin on the Grande Villae lineup when the red and white varietals are already both so good and so structured.

What I find interesting is that although Portugal produces much less wine than Spain and Italy, they produce nearly the same amount per capita. Is that because of so much Port which steals up the volume in exportation?

I don’t see the contradiction, to be honest. Given that Portugal is a much smaller country in both population and geographic extension, it will inevitably produce less wine even if the amount of wine produced per capita is comparable.

I didnt explain myself well. I meant more that since Italy exports so much, and since the per capita production rate is similar I would assume the amount of bottles that stay in Italy per capita would be very low compared to Portugal. But I am wondering if the amount of Port exported balances out the % of the overall production that is exported as a whole.