I have mentioned Os Goliardos, Portugal’s most irreverent wine retailer and importer, on several occasions. They have been making wine in collaboration with other producers for a few years already, under the Uvelhas Negras project, and so I was thrilled to find out that Nadir and Silvia, the couple behind the business, now have a winemaking project 100% their own - right down to the vineyard - at the foot of Serra d’Aire, in the Tejo region (Tomaralmá being the old Arabic name of the town of Tomar). Goliardos happens to be just a few streets down from my place, so I went there and picked up a bottle each of their red Castelão and white Fernão Pires 2019s - their first full fledged official release, despite some 2017 ‘vinous sketches’ also being available for purchase.
The Fernão Pires they are harvesting hails from supercentenarian vineyards - 'more like trees than vines", in their own words, with the harvest being split 80-20 between stainless steel and used oak (15 months). It’s hard to believe this is the same Fernão Pires which produces so many artificially perfumed whites from the hot Tejo flatlands. Here is a silex and petrichor bomb, an imposing monument of austerity, grace and complexity. The rocky minerality is so pungent that I was fooled for a second into recognizing the aromatic profile of certain classic reds (graphite, charcoal) here, but it is beautifully rounded out here by subtle white flowers, different strains of tart citrus and beeswax, in fully olfactive technicolor. The palate is a knockout, a lightning bolt of acid followed by an end palate thunder that curtsies its way coyly in and out of your taste buds. Everything about this screams top shelf, first class juice, which makes the 12,75€ I paid for this bottle something outside mere QPR and firmly within the realm of surrealism or science fiction.
