Portugal has always been an area of extreme interest to me partly because we don't see or hear much about it here in the North American wine world and when we do, it's usually bulked in with Spain, as in the BCLDB catalogue. Since I love learning about and discovering rare and out of the way things, it's no wonder that I had such a great time trying wines today. Another nice thing about today was that because the tasting was so small, with only 7 tables, I had a chance to speak to many of the people directly associated with the wineries in Portugal including several wine makers. I always enjoy it when the people who directly put their love and passion for wine into a bottle want to talk to me about what they made, how and why. It makes the point that every bottle, even from the very beginning has a story to tell about it's terroir and it's maker.
Portugal as a wine making region should be on every value conscience wine consumers radar. Because of it's status as small and little known, as well as usually clumped in with Spain, the prices for even the top wines is more than reasonable and within even the most modest budget. Some of the best values of the year I'm sure will come from this area.
Only a few of the wines I tried today broke the $25 barrier and a good 1/2 of them were under $20. Sadly however, most are still not available in BC, but since many are available in both Ontario and Quebec I'm quite confident we will be seeing at least a few of them fairly soon.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the wines I tried today and while I'd love to tell you about all of them, I will unfortunately have to limit myself to the weird, the cool and the best of the show.
I'll start with the weird and cool:
First on the list is the Lancers FREE White and Rose, cool because they are both non-alcoholic wines. They start out as an alcoholic beverage and then through chemical as well as I'm sure a few other scientific processes that I really don't understand, they take away the alcohol from the wine. A great option for the market especially with stricter laws on drinking and driving coming into effect here in BC. The white tasted very similar to it's alcoholic parent but with more fruit coming through. While the fruit was similar, the non-alcoholic version tasted more like juice than wine. The rose however was quite surprisingly close to the alcoholic version. I could smell the difference in volatile alcohol but the flavour profile was largely the same. Very cool idea though.
Next cool item in the show was the series of wines from Bacalhoa. I'll speak more about the quality of the wines later but it was the bottles that caught my attention at first because they all have braille on the label in addition to the visual words and designs. It wasn't something I had seen before and I thought it was pretty cool.
Now onto my favorite white wine of the show; the Periquita White 2009, sadly not yet on the market here in BC but if it was, it would be around $11. Since the Periquita red is currently available, I'm hoping the white isn't too far away! It was light and fruity on the nose and incredibly food friendly and easy to drink. Still light enough to be a summer wine but also more than appropriate in the winter months for lighter fare.
Casal Garcia DOC Vinho Verde, $10.99 BC Liquor Stores. Out of all the Vinho Verde's I tried today, this was my favorite. Maybe it's because I'm girly sometimes and like fruit in my wine but I'm going to say it's more because out of all of them, this was the one that tasted the most like what I expect a Vinho Verde to taste like. I tried a couple of the single vintages and while good, they weren't the light, fruity and refreshing summer drinks I have learned to love from this area. The Casal Garcia was exactly that with a ripe almost tropical fruit nose and refreshingly crisp on the palate.
I also really liked the Casal Garcia Rose from the DOC of Vinho Verde. Off dry with an alcohol percentage of 10.5, it was aromatic and floral on the nose and not coyingly fruity. A lot of the fruit came through on the palate but there was also a savory component which I quite enjoyed. I'd love to try this wine out with a variety of foods. This wine is not yet available in BC as far as I know, but I hope it is in time for next summer.
The red wines were a truly educational experience for me. I had a chance to try a lot of different grape varieties that I hadn't encountered much in my wine adventures so far and many of the wines I tried today came from very different areas of Portugal with different cultures and climates. I'm still not great with Portuguese geography but I'm starting to taste the differences in the wine and I think that's pretty cool!
The star of the show for me was the Quinta da Bacalhoa 2008 from the Peninsula de Setubal, along the coast in the southern part of the country. Surprisingly, this wine wasn't made with traditional Portuguese grape varieties but instead with French grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and made in a Bordeaux style by blending the two grape varieties. It was love at first taste and as good as some fine Bordeaux's I have had a chance to try. I expected to be told that this wine would retail around $80 and was pleasantly surprised when I was told that it would probably be in the range of $35. This wine sees 14 months of oak and has beautiful soft berries on the nose and palate with great balance and nice softly structured tannins. A joy to drink and I'm sure it would also be a joy with dinner!
Another good one was the Quinta da Garrida 2007, spec item, approx $18. This wine comes from DOC Dao so in the mid-northernish region of portugal and further inland. The local varieties of Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz make up this wine. I really enjoyed it for it's fruity tones with some hints of leather. It was fresher than I expected it to be on the palate which made it fairly refreshing but it still had great fruit that held through and it was a nicely structured wine. Not too 'in your face' but very nice and pleasant.
Other reds that I enjoyed were:
Follies Cabernet Sauvignon/Touriga Nacional 2008: Great fruit with nice spice, both carrying well onto the palate along with mild tannins. Hopefully coming into our market at $16.
Quinta de Terrugem 2006: Alicante Bouschet, Aragonez and Trincadeira Preta are the varieties. I liked it for its countryside feel and pleasant barnyard aromas. Very light with solid fruit coming through. A nice easy drinking wine.
Vista Tinta Roriz 2008 (with some Touriga Nacional): I really liked this wine for its fresh fruit which almost seemed candied on the nose. Came through nicely without being too fruity on the palate with enough other stuff like tannin and spices to hold it up.
Vista Touriga Nacional 2008: Similar to the Tinta Roriz but richer and a little jammier. Had great structure and maintained its really nice rich fruits.
Now for the piece de resistance!! Desert wines:
1999 Moscatel de Setubal: Fantastic fruity aromas from the muscat grape, fortified and aged in old barrels to give it complexity and colour. The alcohol is balanced so nicely with the acid in the grape that it's like drinking muscat syrup. I hope to see this in our market soon and I hope my work place will carry it!
And there we have it, a brief overview of my day trying wines from Portugal. It is such a great area for finding excellent wines at a relatively low price point that it's worth checking out what your local liquor store carries. The quality over the past few years of Portuguese wines has increased so dramatically that knowledgeable consumers can find excellent quality wines for a fraction of the price you'd expect to pay for something of that caliber. I highly recommend seeing what you can find and giving a few of these European gems a try sometime soon! Enjoy :D
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