4 March, 2010

 

Visited Essência do Vinho, a public wine tasting at the Palácio da Bolsa in Porto this evening.  As I plan to visit for several evenings, I started gently, visiting some familiar wine makers but tasting wines I’d not yet tried.

 

First up was Cima de Cortes.  See below, my entry in December, I first drank one of their wines whilst in Denmark.  Had an interesting conversation with Hamilton Reis, one of the wine makers, about some of the more technical aspects of their viticulture and wine making.  More about that another time, as I hope to visit and learn even more. 

 

First I tasted the Chaminé Tinto 2009 – yes, 2009 – it has just been bottled.  This is their entry level red, and is a wonderful exuberant fruity wine, no complex mineral or earth or animal notes, just good clean fruit fun.  Tasting notes are so incredibly subjective, I try to avoid the name-that-fruit game, but I have to say I tasted blueberries – which I don’t think I’ve encountered in a wine before!  The other thing that impressed me was that for such a cheap and cheerful wine it had a great pleasantly persistent full-mouth finish.   To get price bearings, their on-line shop has this at a price that works out around €6.50 a bottle.

 

But then Hamilton pulled out another bottle from under the table, and asked if I liked Touriga Nacional.  Yes indeed… for those not familiar, this grape is one of the foundations of Port wine in the north of Portugal, and it is not commonly grown in the south (Cima de Cortes is in the Alentejo, so think due east of Lisbon, give or take).  It is known for providing the backbone to long lived ports – power, concentration, complexity, all that good stuff.  I have never before had a wine made of 100% Touriga Nacional; this was the 2005.  And yes, the wine was powerful, concentrated and complex, also very subtle which maybe is unexpected given the other qualities.  The flavours for me were earth and floral – not sweet pretty cute floral, but dark earthy warm floral, think violets.  It definitely made me crave steak.  For price bearings – this one is at the other end of the spectrum, around €50 a bottle.  And yes, for a treat to share with a friend I knew would “get it”, I would spend that money for this wine.

 

Side bar note – a couple weeks ago I bought one of their whites, the Chaminé Branco, intending it primarily for use in some soup.  I opened it, had one sip, then got a phone call, so re-corked it straightaway, and by the time the call was over, I abandoned the soup making for the day.  I think it was two days later I finally thought, oops… and went to work on the soup, and the bottle.  First off, the flavours were undiminished from the first taste two days prior; granted I re-corked within minutes of opening, but I have known other (more expensive and pretentious) wines to not survive that.  Like the tinto, this is an every day wine, cheap and cheerful and fruity and I remember thinking the flavours were surprisingly tropical – didn’t expect that.  I just looked it up on their website – it contains Viognier and a little Semillon as well as Antão Vaz and Verdelho.  I paid €4 on special for this.  And, by the way, the majority of the wine went into a fennel soup, and I drank the last glassful with the soup, and both soup and food pairing were fabulous – and I think fennel is tough to match, I’ve had some really stunningly bad pairings!

 

Hamilton mentioned that Cortes de Cima were the first vinyard in Portugal with a website and selling their wine by internet – and it’s an excellent site, good blog and lots of technical notes re vintage conditions, wine making techniques, etc.    http://cortesdecima.com/

 

Next, I visited Fonseca’s table – I’ve heard or read it said that this is what the other port shippers drink when they don’t need to be seen drinking their own brands.  I tried the Quinta do Panescal 1998 – a single quinta port made when Fonseca do not declare a general vintage – and the Fonseca 10 year old tawny.  Both were lovely wines, very elegant.  Some people object to ports as being too heavy and cloying – I would suggest trying the Fonsecas before giving up.

 

Finally, I tasted some more Ramos Pinto wines – I did taste one port, the Lagrima, which is the sweetest style of port made.  It is indeed very sweet, but this was a white port, so the flavours are more tropical and honey end of the scale – no deep dark flavours here – which I think makes it all a little easier to bear.  I asked about food pairings, instant response was “ice cream” and then, after some thought, “maybe some fruit…”  A bit like PX sherry.

 

But what I really wanted was to try more of their non-fortified wines.  In my previous posting I mentioned the Quinta de Ervamoira – nearby is the Quinta dos Bons Ares, which is similarly quite level, but at a higher altitude and on a granite soil, not the usual Douro schist.  Grapes from the two are blended to produce the Duas Quintas line of wines (more of which in a moment).  First I tried a Bons Ares Tinto 2006 – which blends some Cabernet Sauvignon with Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca (but all from the one quinta).  Handsome cranberry colour with very little rim fade.  Very earthy nose, the palate very minerally as well as earthy, good acidity but it’s the tannins that come to the fore.  I liked it very much.  Note that the Bons Ares wines are only available for sale in Portugal (you’ll have to come visit me). 

 

Next I tried two of the Collection wines – 2006 and 2007.  These wines blend traditional port grapes (Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca as well as the unidentified “mixture” so typical of the older Douro vinyards) from Quinta de Ervamoira and Quinta do Bom Retiro which is in the Cima Corgo, south of Pinhão.  In the 2006, both nose and palate were a balance of earth and fruit notes for me.  In the 2007 the fruit comes forward, though my note says not lush juicy.  Both have vivid tannins.  And the 2006 has hands down the best label I’ve ever seen – the serpent twined around a rather coy and naked Eve, offering her a glass of wine rather than an apple.

 

Finally, Duas Quintas.  I will back up and say I had the basic Duas Quintas Tinto a couple weeks ago at a friend’s housewarming, and it was a treat.   He opened the bottle and we tried it, and his eyes lit up, I’m sure mine did too, but we agreed the wine was a bit cold, so he handed the bottle to me and I cuddled it for a good 15 minutes or more.  When we tasted again (and again, and… ), it was much more expressive.  Tonight at Essência I tried the Duas Quintas Reserva 2007, which has not yet been released.  The first impression was the contrast to the Collection in terms of tannins – here they were much more integrated – I had to stop and really think, search in my mouth for a minute, but yes, good tannins, just wonderfully integrated.  Again, earth and fruit on the palate, maybe spices in the mix.  An incredibly elegant, supple wine, all the elements knit together seamlessly.  But the fun thing was, I was given a bit of dark, rather bitter chocolate, and after that, the fruit suddenly leapt to the fore in my mouth.  Fascinating. 

 

As mentioned before, Ramos Pinto have an enchanting website, do take a look:   http://www.ramospinto.pt

 

Of course I am unable to take pictures in the wine tasting, and this is not a great photo, but… I know ISO glasses are supposed to concentrate the aromas so you can get the nose better and all that, but I still think the Portuguese have the right idea – thinking back to the tastings I’ve had at quintas, they have always been in generous glasses, which rather says it all for me.

 

19 February, 2010

For those concerned by my silence, please don’t be – I am settling in here in Gaia, it’s just quiet, practicing my Portuguese and not drinking much at all, and then not worth writing about. 

 

With one fabulous exception which prompts this entry:  last night I visited Vinilogia again, and had a glass of heaven on earth, I think – Ramos Pinto’s 10 year old Tawny Quinta de Ervamoira. 

 

You may recall (or re-read below if you don’t!) that on my first visit to Vinilogia I wanted to try tawnies from each region of the Douro – Baixo, Cima and Superiore, but the third I had that day was sort of borderline Cima and Superiore.  Subsequently Godfrey Spence (author of The Port Companion and free lance wine educator and writer) suggested this as one to try from the heart of the Douro Superiore.  I never did get around to it, as I loathe drinking alone, and haven’t had company (hint hint anyone who wants to visit!).

 

Yesterday I called a friend from the school where I’ve had my Portuguese lessons, and dragged him to Vinilogia to try this port with me.  Oh bliss.  Beautiful tawny garnetty colour (not ideal lighting in there for appraising colour, but… ), very smooth palate, very rich concentrated deep dark marmelade and apricot, maybe a whiff of spice?  And that wonderful quality which wood aging gives which just knits all the flavours together without clobbering you over the head with “OAK!!!” as can happen in younger dry wines.  And the bartender gave us generous measures, bless…

 

After that, my friend voted we go to the IVDP and carry on tasting there.  They always keep a half dozen bottles of port going, one of each type (white, ruby, reservas, tawnies of various ages, LBV, etc.), but every week a different variety and selection of producers.  We opted for the tasting of four:  a dry white, an LBV, and 10 and 20 year old tawnies. 

 

I will be honest – I had not had much food that day, and that little was at 8:00 am; by late afternoon it only took that full glass of Quinta de Ervamoira to make me a bit dim and vague.  I genuinely cannot recall much about these four wines except this:  the dry white tasted like potato crisps (and I actually do remember the producer, but they will remain nameless), the LBV was Graham’s I think, post millenium and pleasant, and the two tawnies were nice but not a patch on the Quinta de Ervamoira for pleasure or complexity, not even the 20 year old. 

 

Quinta de Ervamoira has an interesting history and is quite unique:  following on from considerable research into sites, production methods and grapes, Ramos Pinto bought this site in the 70’s, in the Douro Superior near Foz Côa, and planted it vertically and mostly in single variety vinyards – both decisions were extraordinary and controversial in the Douro at that time, where vinyards were traditionally planted in terraces running horizontally along the contours of the hills with a blend of grape varieties planted together.  After considerable investment in land, research and planting, the entire property was threatened by submersion with the building of a new dam on the Douro.  Miraculously, Paleolithic rock paintings were discovered nearby, and ultimately the dam project was cancelled to preserve the archeological site, and with it, Quinta de Ervamoira.  The quinta has established an archeological musuem on site.

 

Do visit Ramos Pinto’s website, it is an absolute delight.  http://www.ramospinto.pt

 

The company was founded in 1880 by Adriano Ramos Pinto who was first an artist, and the company continues the legacy of supporting the arts, using rather charming and risqué Belle Epoque images in their advertising and on some of their wine labels – my favourite being their Collection 2006 (a dry red wine), which features the serpent winding around a naked Eve and proferring her a glass of wine in lieu of an apple.  They also have some of the most marvelously poetic and evocative but spot on tasting notes I’ve ever read.

 

No good recent or strictly relevant photos – really must go up river again soon – so here’s one from October.  The train station at Pinhão has a series of panels of azulejos illustrating the harvest, this one showing cestos típicos – cestos being Portugese for pannier, the basket carried on the back.

 

Thursday, 31 December 2009

 

For those kind enough to express concern, yes, I am alive and well and settling into Porto, or more accurately, Gaia, where I now have a flat.  But the throes of my language studies, job hunting and general settling-in would not  make for fascinating reading, I imagine.

 

So my very flimsy excuse for writing now is a bottle of wine which has kept me company for three of the past four or five nights (I don’t drink much, what can I say?).  Last May I visited Quinta do Casal Branco in the Ribatejo, just south of Almeirim, and wrote about it for the blog (you can find it again in the Portugal folder on left margin).  They make quite a broad range of wines, I tasted only about a half dozen back in May.  Earlier this week I needed some wine for cooking – and the cook decided she needed some too – and bought a bottle of their 2008 Quinta do Casal Branco, vinho regional Ribatejano Vinho Branco, which is a pure Fernão Pires.  It did well in a reduction with a little white balsamic vinegar for a sautéed chicken breast, brussel sprouts and endive dish.  Also did well washing down same – how many wines can withstand brussel sprouts, really?  Very crisp semi-fruit semi-floral palate, and refreshing acidity.  Can’t comment reliably on the colour as I am drinking from a pottery beaker I normally use for tea-drinking, not a wine glass (still awaiting word when, if ever, my things will arrive from England, thankfully I have had this beaker with me on all my travels since June).

 

Tonight I finished the last two glasses left in the bottle – the first glass washed down a pile of steamed veg over baked potato, cutting nicely through all the butter and parmesan, shame on me, and the second glass has gone even more nicely with a volume of Fernando Pessoa.  Admittedly in English – though I will start trying to read some of it in Portuguese, will treat myself to a book next week.  Food and wine are cheap here, so more money for books.

 

Slightly hokey still life – the wine, the book, the british pottery beaker, and a plate and bowl of Portuguese hand made pottery from Viana do Castelo, north of Porto.  There is a strong tradition of pottery in this country, and several very distinct regional styles.  I shall probably collect a bit of each over time, but this was the most appealing to me for every day staring-up-at-me-from-under-my-food table ware.  And it was the most nearly local, which I felt was appropriate.

 

Happy New Year – Bom Ano Novo

Thursday, 26 November, 2009

 

Earlier in the week I wanted to buy a bottle of wine by way of thank you to someone who helped me with getting my tax number and introduced me to an estate agent here.  I stumbled into what I mistook for a wine shop in Ribeira, and found instead the most wonderful little pub which offers only ports – over 200 available by the glass, and all strictly single quinta independent producer ports, none of the big shippers’ wines.  I needed to be responsible that day, but today I had no obligations, so I returned.

 

I had glanced briefly at their menu, for lack of a better word, which described a number of tastings that could be arranged – a glass of each type of port, for example (white, tawny, ruby) or vertical tastings of vintages and colheitas, and so on.   When I returned, I asked to try three ports, of the same style, but from each of the major regions:  Baixa Corgo, Cima Corgo, and Douro Superior.  I was curious if I could taste the differences in climate and terrain.

 

In a way, I didn’t taste what I wanted or expected to, but I certainly enjoyed the wines, they were wonderful.  My mistake was twofold:  first, I chose ten year old tawnies, which by nature are blends, so though all the wines blended in would be of the terroir, I imagine the aging would mask or change some qualities that might stand out in a single vintage wine.  Second, not a mistake, but just a fact of life – there isn’t a quinta really deep in the Douro Superior – the nearest or most different from typical Cima Corgo was a quinta on the Rio Torto, which runs south from Pinhão.  So, I may have to repeat this all with rubies to try out my idea of tasting climate and terrain (shame!).

 

Meanwhile, the wines I tasted were wonderful, and beautifully presented.  The bartender gave a lot of thought to selecting the wines for me, offering two choices for my not-quite-Douro-Superior, and I chose the organic one.  He then set out three glasses, with a glass of water to the right, and asked if I wanted almonds (warning me they were salted) or chocolates – I chose chocolates, and he set a small dish of bitter dark chocolates on the left.  As he poured each wine, he set the bottle on the table behind the glass, and left it there so I could consult it as needed. 

 

The line up was as follows, all ten year old tawnies:

 

Quinta das Lamelas, bottled 2009, 19.5%.   This one is from near Lamego, which is about 15 km south of Regua.  Beautiful warm golden tawny colour, slightly paler mid gold rim.  The nose was heavenly, it simply SMELLED tawny, like a warm summer day, just too intense and complex to parse out individual scents.  It was a pure fruit scent, I definitely did not spot the sort of secondary or tertiary scents like wood, smoke or leather.  On the palate, I was more aware of sensations than flavours – it simply expanded in your mouth, had a wonderful backdraft, and wonderful acidity and length.  When you are learning to taste wine, you are taught that a wine has good acidity when it makes your mouth water – if you open your mouth slightly and breath in through your mouth, the insides of your cheeks should salivate – that’s acidity.  This was a truly mouthwatering wine – wonderful acidity.  The only tasting note per se I have is very dark honey.  I will also note that after two hours spent pondering and tasting all three wines in turn, I felt I could only finish up one glass and still walk home safely after dark – this is the one I chose to finish.

 

Quinta de Val da Figueira, bottled 2008, 20%.  This one is from Pinhão, it’s actually the next quinta down river from Quinta de la Rosa, which I visited in October.  Colour was deeper, darker, more opaque than the previous – it reminded me of a beautiful newly laid and varnished cherrywood floor I had once seen – so a deep red-tawny colour – with a quite narrow clear strawberry rim.  Nose was warm orchard and stone fruit, dark honey and a whiff of smokiness.  Palate – again fabulous acidity and length.  I used to buy apricots that were dried without preservatives and so were much darker and gooier and chewier and far more flavourful than the “preservatived” ones that were still pale orangey and had a decidedly dry texture – this wine was definitely reminiscent of the former.  Of the three wines, this one held up against the bitter dark chocolate best – the other two seemed to lighten up when contrasted with the chocolate, this one was in no way diminished by contrast with the chocolate.  Later, on repeat tasting, a slight cedar-y aroma came up on the nose, which didn’t entirely please me (but that could just be bad memories of cleaning out the gerbil cage as a child). 

 

Casal dos Jordões, bottled 2009, 20%, this is the one from down the Rio Torto valley, which runs southeast from near Pinhão.  Colour similar to prior, deep opaque red-tawny, wider strawberry rim.  Nose was initially the most delicate, had the most finesse of the three, later, my last whiff of the evening, it definitely rose out of the glass to meet me – which was a joy!  Palate was most complex and concentrated, if the others brought to mind some fruits, this brought to mind the whole fruitcake – intense, melded fruit and spice flavours.  Good acidity, but not as overt as the other two, ditto the finish.  Overall, this one had more going on for flavour, but less going on for sensation in the mouth. 

 

When I went back for a nose of all three in quick succession, there was a distinct crescendo of density and complexity.

 

All told, a really enjoyable two hours of wine.  As it was late afternoon and no other customers at the time, the bartender and I were talking about the wines and wine making.  One factoid that stands out in memory is that there are over 30,000 growers in the region, most of whom supply the big port shippers – and only 37 independent single quinta producers.  Vino Logia (this pub) focuses on the ports from these 37 producers, both by the glass in the bar, and for sale by the bottle (so I wasn’t entirely off, it is a wine shop too…).  Their website is in French and Portuguese, at http://www.lamaisondesporto.com/   and the pub is on the corner of the Rua do São João and Rua do Infante Dom Henrique, just above the Praça da Ribeira, on the Oporto waterfront.

 

 

Friday, 27 November, 2009 

 

For a completely different experience, Friday morning I visited the IVDP – Instituto do Vinho do Douro e Porto.  This is the governing body for the port trade and recently merged with another entity responsible for protecting and promoting the broader concerns of the Douro wine DOC.

 

Every wine that wishes to carry DOC status must be tested and approved by the IVDP – their stamp of approval is that white label secured under the seal of the cork with a specific number that can be traced back, if there are any concerns.  Producers must submit samples of all their wines for testing shortly before bottling, and the IVDP also conducts random sampling, both at the producers’ and by buying bottles off the shelves from shops.  All testing is conducted blind. 

 

The first sort of testing consists of a great many terribly high tech scientific chemical analyses for sugar and alcohol content, levels of various chemicals, testing for contaminants or micro-organisms, etc. and you peer through a window at a terribly modern laboratory with all kinds of machines and test tubes and white coated scientists. 

 

Then you go round the corner and you see testing done by good old fashioned tasting – although these scientists also are white coated, and the samples are still blind, what you see through the window is a man seated in a rather 90’s office cubicle, with a computer screen before him, a patch of natural white light in which to appraise colour, and a line up of 10 glasses of wine, each numbered.  Their job is to confirm the good old fashioned way that the wine is, or tastes like, what it purports to be – e.g. a ten year old tawny, and that it does not taste “off” or faulty even if all the chemical analyses show it shouldn’t.  Interestingly, in any given lineup, ten percent of the samples will be wines previously tested by that taster – a master taster reviews their findings for consistency, as a quality assurance review.

 

After this very brief tour you are offered a tasting of one wine from a selection of five or six possibilities, all from the big shippers.  Only, I got lucky and got a double dip – since my first choice had only a thimbleful left in the bottle, my guide allowed me to taste a second one, and I got a proper serving with which to sit and watch a video tour of the Douro and some regional restaurants.  It felt very decadent to be sitting there drinking port at 11:30 in the morning…

 

The first small sample was Fonseca Bin 27 Finest Reserve Ruby.  From my very tiny sample it was a deep dark opaque garnet colour, with some precipitation of course from the end of the bottle.  Flavour was the apotheosis of strawberry jam, pure and concentrated – and that was a very good thing.  It’s possible an entire glass could become cloying – but I would be very willing to try it and see!  I could think of a recipe for a chocolate cake that might go well with this, too…

 

My second proper serving was Sandeman’s Imperial Reserve Tawny.  This came straight out of the fridge (first serving of the morning) and the nose was pretty whiffy – it seemed to be all secondary flavours of smoke and wood shavings, and no fruit.  Later, having warmed it a bit in my hands, more fruit came up both on nose and palate.  It was pleasant, but it probably suffered from the contrast, being consumed less than 24 hours after those three ten year old single quinta tawnies at Vino Logia.  On the other hand, I did finish the glass whilst watching the food and travel videos, so it wasn’t bad stuff at all.

 

The website for the IVDP is in Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish, and there is quite a lot of information on there about the wines and the region generally, as well as the work and role of the IVDP.  http://www.ivdp.pt

 

 

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

 

… in one easy bottle. 

 

My last night in Denmark we toasted my next move by drinking a bottle of Portuguese wine – made by a Danish wine maker based in the Alentejo.  This was another terrific suggestion from Thomas at Vinoteket – Cortes de Cima 2006 Vinho Tinto, Vinho Regional Alentejo.  This was a blend of Syrah, Aragonez (better known as Tempranillo in Spain) and Touriga Nacional (a classic Port grape – I’ve always loved Richard Mayson’s pithy description of it as “deep, dense and focused with cast-iron backbone”).  This wine is aged two years, half that time in oak.  Red and black fruit, some spice notes, nutmeg came to mind, and tannins that were not so chunky or chewy as in the wines I usually favour – I think the label description used the word velvety, I would go with that – and a very satisfying finish.  The oak was not assertive, I think it just worked to meld the flavours a bit, no overt vanilla or any of that nonsense (now you know how I feel about oaky wines!).  Wonderful wine, we had a flank steak that night, it was a great combination.  This was 99 dkr, which is about £12. 

 

The domaine has an incredibly rich and well-designed website, so I’m not even going to try to recapitulate – take a look, it’s interesting.  Thomas recommended a visit to the domaine, he enjoyed it very much himself.  Personally I’m fascinated by the concept of having a traditional Danish Christmas lunch in the heart of the Alentejo.   http://cortesdecima.com/

 

Arrived Portugal the evening of the 19^th, spent a couple days in Lisbon, then came up to Oporto Sunday. 

 

Have been busy trying to settle sheer logistics (getting a tax number, a bank account, an english-speaking estate agent and viewing some flats…), but of course first thing I had to walk out the Dom Luis I bridge, and admire the view… rather different from last July’s image. 

 

 

Besides the autumnal mist, notice above and to the left of the Croft sign that massive five story edifice being constructed into and on the crest of the hill.  That will be the Fladgate Partnership’s Yeatman Hotel and Spa, due to open in the coming year.  Jamie Goode has written about it recently on his Wine Anorak site, and has some more detailed pictures and information:  http://www.wineanorak.com/douro/yeatman.htm

 

The weekly wine tasting dinners, sponsored by a range of wine firms not just those in the Fladgate Partnership, sound wonderful, as well as the idea of a wine-related spa.  Château Smith Haut Lafitte were, I think, the first to go into this, and certainly their Caudalie line of skin care products are excellent.  Anyone who has been justifying their wine drinking by pointing to the high levels of anti-oxidants in wine will be pleased to know they do as much good topically applied as imbibed (so it’s not a total loss if you spill some on yourself!).  Personally, I’d rather be treading the grapes to get my dose, and I hope my next harvest will be up in the Douro, otherwise I may have to settle for a treatment at the spa when it opens.

 

So much to look forward to, now I am settling here.

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

 

Another gloriously sunny day, warm but not quite as hot as yesterday, a good breeze helped to keep things a little more comfortable than yesterday. 

 

Had the tour of the wine making process at Quinta de la Rosa, beginning at the stone lagares (wading pools) where the grapes are trodden (after sorting and de-stalking).  These are also fitted with a mechanism for doing the remontage – imagine a steel bar across the width of the lagares on tracks so it can be drawn and positioned over either of three lagares.  The bar is rigged to draw up the wine into the bar and spray it back down over the cap, forcing the cap back down a bit to extract more colour and tannins.  After the wine has fermented partially (leaving a lot of natural sugars), the aguardente (a grape brandy of 70% alcohol) is blended with the must in the lagar to arrest the fermentation – hence the combination of high sugar content but also high alcohol levels of ports.  Then the whole lot is tranferred to stainless steel tanks for final pressing, and then the wine is run off into a variety of oak barrels (small like the burgundians), pipes (barrels of typically 550 litres, used for tawnies and potential vintage ports) and balseiros (immense standing barrels to hold 40,000 to 100,000 litres – used for rubies, typically) in the armazem (cave or store room) downstairs.

 

Two things about Quinta de la Rosa – one is, as an independent quinta, they age all their ports in the Douro, at the quinta – no tankers trucking it all down to Gaia in the spring after harvest like Taylor’s et al.  Thinking about our access to the lagares and then going down a ladder into the armazem, it must be built into the hill on three sides, if not totally underground – so cooler conditions than many who age wines in the Douro above ground.  Second, perched in between the immense pipes were a half dozen smaller casks.  You may have bought a case of name brand port to put down for your child or godchild the year it’s born – the Berqvists MAKE a designated lot of port with the name and birth year of the grandchild painted in beautiful calligraphy on the cask end, which will rest in the armazem till time to bottle.  How wonderful.

 

Another type of container for aging the port are balões – there were none at Quinta de la Rosa but I spotted a nice pair as I was walking through Pinhão:

 

 

These concrete tanks are also known as mamas, ginas or lollabrigidas.  I’m sure you can see why… who said the Portuguese don’t have a sense of humour?

 

After the tour of the wine making process, I had another wander round some vinyards – this time the ones nearest the house, Vale Grande, for starters.  The pruning and training of the vines is exquisite:

 

 

At first glance it looks as if one vine is trained all along the lower wire.  In fact, from each vine trunk one cane is bent to the right and tied down along the lower wire – and the cane is cut just abutting the next vine.  From these canes, pairs of shoots are trained up between the upper wires in overlapping V formations.

 

Here is a more detailed shot:

 

 

Hopefully you can see what I am talking about.  It really is meticulously done, and beautiful to behold.

 

And, of course… my trip would not be complete without…

 

 

The cutest little tractors you ever did see.  I mean tiny – that one with the little red wagon behind it would fit inside the cab of a french tractor.  These things are necessarily miniature here, as they are designed to work in between rows of vines, and keep a low centre of gravity, which is much safer on these steep hills than the very high vine-straddling french models.  The tractors are used for ploughing and spraying only, all pruning and harvesting are done by hand – and that is true throughout the Douro.  The landscape just doesn’t permit any alternative. 

 

To the left is a miniature bulldozer – for sculpting and maintaining the taludes (the angled banks between vine plateaus) and doubtless access roads too.  Yesterday I was thinking that vinyard maintenance here is a sort of triathlon – not only are there the actual vines to maintain all year round, but the landscaping and road and drainage works must also need year round attention. 

 

I went for a walk into Pinhão, then across the bridge and along the south shore of the river, opposite Quinta de la Rosa.  From the bridge I got a good photo of the area where I was walking yesterday:

 

 

In the centre you can just about see two white buildings – the one on the right says Calem – another port shipper (see Turista entry from July).  The Calem family used to own Quinta de Foz, which basically is that hillside vinyard.  On top of the middle shoulder of hill above those buildings you might just barely be able to make out another house against the trees behind – Casa Vedeal – which is part of Quinta de Foz.  Yesterday I walked up past the two small white buildings and then zig zagged up that hill along the patamares, walking back and forth from south-facing to east- to north-facing sides (the right-hand folds of hill in this picture) all the way up to Casa Vedeal.  And back down again.  The very first picture posted on yesterday’s blog was taken from most of the way up that hill, looking south to the opposite bank of the river.

 

When I got to the south bank myself this afternoon, I had a marvellous view of Quinta de la Rosa:

 

 

Above the two long red roofs you see the line of six windows with black shutters – that’s the guest house – my room was the third window (actually french door) from the right.  To the left of the roofs are two small houses that are let to larger groups.  Under the roofs are the lagares and presses, and below them are the cellars where the wines are stored, which extend under the two guest houses as well. 

 

The family’s own house is a bit further downriver, to the left of the buildings above:

 

 

The beautifully trained vines described above are from the patamares just below the house.  If I am understanding the information sheet in my room correctly, that vinyard above the house, tucked into the fold of the hill, is the Vale do Inferno, and was planted by the great grandfather of the present generation owner before the First World War.

 

Still further down river are some wonderful and very steep socalcos:  

 

 

Looking at the hills all day, and at the photos again this evening, I keep thinking of the challenges of managing the harvest from the different microclimates.  Because of the height of the hills, you get very different conditions from top to bottom, due to sheer altitude (up to 450 metres at Q de la R).  Then there’s the fact a single row of vines can wrap around a hillside from south facing over the river (think about the mists rising from the river in the autumns, and the varying degrees of effect from bottom to top of the vinyards above) to east facing to north facing (differing degrees of sun all around the curve of the hill, effects of proximity to the facing hillsides).  And then the fact that most vinyards are a mixture of grape varieties – so each vine reacting differently, according to the inherent qualities of the variety – greater susceptibility to heat, to damp, etc. etc.  Look at the folds of hills and the shadows cast (hours of sunlight on any given vines), just in the photo above, or the first photo posted yesterday.  Mind boggling. 

 

Going back to the first photo of the quinta, the left most tall skinny pine marks the eastern end of a long, narrow slightly curved pool built into one of the patamares – where I had a lovely swim to cool off after all the walking, and then dozed in the sun on a long deck chair.  Bliss.

 

Farewell Pinhão

 

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

 

Was up and out and walking to the train station this morning at 7:00 am – still deep blue night skies but only two planets showing and the crescent moon on its back above the hill opposite my window.  As I walked, I could hear fish jumping in the river and a rooster crowing from somewhere above Pinhão. 

 

Coming back in the train, paying closer attention to landscape – you can definitely see the change from the Cima Corgo to the Baixa Corgo – in the Cima Corgo around Pinhão it is visibly drier, rockier, and the plants besides vines and low scrub are really only olive and pine trees.  Once past Corvelinhas, the village that more or less marks the dividing line between the two, though you are still in hills, it all feels much more green, there is a lot more land that is simply forest – a mixture of deciduous and conifer.  Much more fertile – the visible effects of the generally higher rainfall in that area.  Fascinating.  This photo taken Monday from the train when we first came down to the Douro, so Baixa Corgo – I think if you compare this to all the other photos of the area around Pinhão you can see what I mean.

 

 

 

As with my first visit to Burgundy, things I have read about and understood intellectually now made visible make so much more sense to me.  It’s like connecting the dots – seeing all these things I’ve been told affect the flavour and quality of the wine, now I can really comprehend the connections.  When I drink the wine now, I picture the landscape.

 

At the train station in Pinhão are wonderful azulejos – the tile panels painted with a variety of scenes, mostly to do with the harvest, and inside there is a little museum like display of photos and texts about the vinyards and history of the region.  I copied down this wonderful quote – Miguel Torga is the nom de plume for a 20^th century portuguese writer of poetry, short stories and a diary.  He died in 1995, no date was indicated on the placard with this quote.  I think this is wonderfully apt.

 

Diario III

 

Pinhão, September 25^th.  Impossible to imagine a more beautiful thing in the world than the Valley of Pinhão when the first autumn colours visit the place.  The people take a look from the top and seem not to be on earth anymore.

 

They lean forward over a precipice of colours and, deep down, see two rivers which still their thirst with one another.  But there has never been dropped a line about this, no legend embedding such splendour, never ever a poet travelled through with his lyre.

 

 

Monday, 12 October 2009

 

Guess where I am at last?

 

 

 

In Pinhão.  I took the train from Oporto, which wound north, then east, then back south to the Douro, then east right along the river to Regua, then on to Pinhão.  Absolutely spectacular journey, recommend it highly.

 

A little Douro geography lesson for those who aren’t familiar… wish I had a map to patch in here, will work on that. 

 

From Oporto to Regua, as the crow flies (NOT as the river winds) is roughly 43 miles, to Pinhão about 55, to Pocinho about 80 miles.  The vinyard district for grapes for port (and increasingly for unfortified Douro wines as well) begins about 38 miles from Oporto, the eastern side of a mountain range called Serra do Marão.  From there to Pocinho there are three distinct regions, first the Baixo Corgo, then the Cima Corgo, then the Douro Superior.  Baixo and Cima mean lower and upper, or below and above, the Corgo River.  Strictly the Cima Corgo begins a bit further east than the point where the Corgo River comes into the Douro at Regua.

 

The difference in regions is primarily climate and to a lesser degree terrain, which of course hugely affects the grapes and therefore the style of wine that can be made.

 

The Baixo Corgo is in the shadow of the Serra do Marão, so it is the coolest and wettest area, and very fertile.  As you continue east the rainfall drops pretty dramatically (weather systems typically work from west to east, off the Atlantic) and the land is progressively both drier and stonier (less fertile).  If you are familiar with the climate descriptions used to describe wine regions, then the Baixo Corgo has almost an Atlantic climate (wet, mild, not too dramatic fluctuations in temperature either winter to summer or even day to night), the Cima Corgo has a Continental / Mediterranean climate (hot summers and days, cold winters and nights, less rainfall generally), and the Douro Superior is the eastern end, up to the border with Spain, and has a more extreme Continental climate, with drought a serious problem; also sheer access was a problem until the past twenty or thirty years.

 

Which translates in wine style terms to:  Baixo Corgo is high volume, lower intensity of flavour – good for creating a lighter, simpler style of wine or for blending and balancing more intense grapes from elsewhere; think Ruby and basic Tawnies.  Cima Corgo is greater intensity and complexity of flavour – the heart of the region, all the major producers have properties here – think of your top end rubies, aged tawnies, your vintage and LBVs (late bottled vintage).  The climate of the Douro Superior is of course the most stressful – which creates the most powerful intensity of flavour, but in small quantities, so again, think of your vintage and LBV ports, and blending into your premium tawnies.

 

Pinhão is the heart of the Cima Corgo.  Now you know where I am and why.

 

Arrived about noon, had lunch and some sleep (almost no sleep in Oporto the past couple nights between traffic, howling dogs and my own thoughts once the other things woke me up in the middle of the night), and then set out to explore.

 

I am staying at Quinta de la Rosa, about 2 km walk west from Pinhão train station, on the north bank of the Douro.  Very charming accomodation, do stay there if you can; it’s right on the river.  From the Quinta I basically started walking uphill to the north (well more towards the sky than towards the north it seemed).

 

Met my first grapes very shortly:

 

 

I was told Quinta de la Rosa started their harvest in mid-August and finished about three weeks ago, so these must have been unripe at harvest time and left behind.  So I had no compunction about tasting them – wonderfully intensely sweet and flavourful.  These were about the size of blueberries and the bunch was not very tightly packed – all the bunches I saw were quite loose, not like most pinot noir at all.  Pips and skin made a higher percentage of the mouthful than the flesh, but if you are willing to chew a bit, the pips and skin are good to eat too, very flavourful.  Often with pinot noir I found the pips almost jawbreaking and gave up and spat them out, or if I did chew through them, found them a bit bitter.  I have to say, I sampled a fair few grapes today, and all of them were thoroughly edible, though some were less intensely flavoured than this first lot.  No idea re varieties.  Tomorrow I will attend the tour and tasting at 11:00 am, and hopefully learn more.  [Learned that this vinyard is a mix of varieties, so still can’t be sure.]

 

All of this area is mountainous – what you see in that first photo is what I am surrounded by here.  The vines are planted on terraces, called patamares.  For centuries pre-phylloxera, the terraces were built with dry stone retaining walls, as much as anything as a way to use up all the stone excavated to create the flat terraces, and there were only a couple rows of vines per terrace – one, two, maybe three at most.

 

 

That is actually part of the view from the window of my room, to the hillside opposite.  You can see the wonderful old stone walls, and the vinyards, and olive trees as well.

 

When the vinyards all had to be torn out and re-planted post phylloxera the cost of labour had risen somewhat since prior centuries, so other methods were adopted.  First they made broader terraces, called socalcos, of 10 or 20 rows of vines on an incline between retaining walls, like these on the right side:  

 

 

By the mid 20^th century labour costs had risen further, so stone walls were out of the question, and they returned to the narrow and flat patamares, with two rows of vines, but built atop steeply angled banks (taludes), not walls – god bless bulldozers.  Erosion can be a problem, as can weed control but… beats building miles of stone walls.

 

 

Another nice view of a talude:

 

 

 

Which brings me to schist.  You want stoney soil for your grapes?  This is stone heaven.  Schist is a generic term for any sort of rock that forms (and breaks up) in layers (think about mica) – here it is clay based, and quite acidic.  And wandering around, it is mostly rock underfoot, there is some clay dust, and I saw one or two patches of slimey very clay silt-ey mud on the roads, but most of all, it’s rock.  And a good thing about rock in any vinyard is heat retention and reflection back up to the grapes, aiding ripening and minimising the impact of temperature swings from day to night.

 

 

More schist under the vines.  But look carefully – see to the left of the wooden post a dark blue triangular bit?  That is the broken stump of a blue schist post – another piece of it is lying just to the right of the foot of the vine.  This type of schist is very very hard, and is most common at the far eastern end of the Douro.  I saw hundreds of these stone posts throughout the vinyards, though as they break they are being replaced with wood.

 

 

Here, an intact blue schist post, and alongside it a vine which was cut down, and a new spur trained up from the stump – string was taped to the stump and then tied up to the first wire of the trellis, and the cane trained up along the string till it was long enough to be caught in the trellis wires.  Beyond, a nice eyeful of patamares.

 

 

Here, baby vines probably only a year or two old – notice the deep depressions dug out around them, called caldeiras.  These collect and channel water down to the roots of the young vines as they become established.  Given the dry climate, new vines are watered by hand during the first few years to give them a fighting chance until their roots are deep, broad and strong enough to find sufficient water for themselves. 

 

And when they grow up to be big and strong…

 

 

In another year or so like the first vine on the left, and after that, in about 20 years’ time, like the next one along the row.  The vines here are trained much higher than in Burgundy – three rows of wires here, the bottom wire is below my hip, the middle around my second rib counting up from the waist, and the top wire around my shoulder or even chin in some cases (I’m 5’6” or 1.65 m).  Versus in Burgundy, generally two rows of wires, first around knee height and the upper wire was under my armpit – I could lean over the top and cut on the other side of a row if necessary.

 

Finally, a view from halfway up this hill, looking north by east towards Pinhão on the banks of the river.  Those are vine wires across the middle of the photo by the way, not cable car cables!

 

Sunday, 11 October 2009

 

After a day in Lisbon and three in Oporto, and still no leads on job front, betook myself to the beach today – Vila do Conde, north of Oporto on the Atlantic coast.  And in case you can’t tell from the picture – around 30 degrees and cloudlessly sunny.  So glad I packed the bikini, even if the business attire was all a waste of space in the pack…

 

 

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

 

If you’ve enjoyed the blog… if you’re in the wine trade… and perhaps looking to hire!  I would love to hear from you – click on the hyperlink on my name above and send me an e-mail.

 

I am looking for employment in the wine trade, for preference in Portugal or France.  My greatest interest is the viticulture, but I have a range of skills from a business background which would be applicable in the office, in tourism, you name it. 

 

Next week I go to Portugal for 9 days, to perform reconnaissance on my chances of employment in Oporto, and whilst there I hope to get up to Pinhão and finally see some of these legendary quintas and vinyards for myself. 

 

Meanwhile, to tide us all over till then, another picture from last July in Gaia… love the sense of the height of the hill from here.  Wouldn’t it be nice to walk up that hill every day to work?  Sigh…

 

Thursday, 30 July, 2009

 

Have to return to England to deal with sordid business matters there, so will be leaving Oporto at the end of the week, spending a day in Lisbon, then as best I can figure about 29 hours travelling by train from Lisbon to Kent.  Will blog again when there is anything to tell…

 

One last image:  At Taylors there was an arbor to shade the area between the lodge, offices and restaurant, and of course grapes growing there – no idea what sort, didn’t get a chance to ask, but they were just beginning to change colour.

 

And yes, it’s a little blurry… I’d had another glass of the white port when I took this, funny how badly that affected the camera…

 

Tuesday, 28 July 2009

 

Have spent a few days wandering both Oporto and Gaia.  I think I mentioned that the last photo of the lodges in Gaia was taken from the top level of the Luis I bridge – you can get a feeling for how high up it is.  Well, there is also a lower level to the bridge at waterfront level, where the cars pass over (trams above, pedestrians on both).  Climbing up and down that hill on both sides is good exercise, let me tell you!  Next to the bridge there is an old stone stairway on the Oporto side, which turns into a steep street for the final stretch upwards, on the Gaia side you can walk down through the neighbourhood in a series of stairways and switchback cobbled streets.  As I was walking down that today, I got a nice photo of the roofs as I was coming down – right up there with walls I think for textural interest.

 

 

 

On Sunday a very dear friend met me in Oporto and took me for a wonderful lunch at Barão de Fladgate, the restaurant at Taylor’s lodge, near the top of the hill.  The Portuguese take their lunch as seriously as the French, maybe more so – figure three hours in Portugal rather than two in France.  We arrived about 13:00 or so, and didn’t leave till after 16:00.  The restaurant closes at 15:00 but they didn’t say a word, just let us finish our repast and our conversation, and when we finally did leave we found security kindly waiting to let us out at the gates! 

 

We had a white port, Taylor’s Chip Dry, for aperitif, which was good – the taste was something between sherry and port – had the bone dryness and yeasty toasty notes of a dry fino, but also the intense-sweet-dried-fruit flavours that you think of when you think of port.  Fascinating.  With our main course (we both had fish) we had the white Falcoaria, the top wine from Casal Branco (the estate I visited in May), which is made from 100% Fernão Pires grapes, and cut through the richness of the fish nicely.  For dessert we had strawberries in one bowl and melted chocolate in another… heaven.  The ruby port served at the end of the meal was lovely with the chocolate, but the white port actually complemented it surprisingly well too, I liked the combination.  Ruby port was also delicious with bare fingertips dipped in chocolate, by the way, when I ran out of strawberries and white port.

 

Today I stopped at the Taylor’s lodge and was ushered in to join a tour that was in progress, but missed most of it, which was a shame.  Of course at the lodges all you really see are the massive storage vats (any where from 20,000 – 100,00 litres) used for the ruby ports in one room and the 550 litre barrels (pipes) for the wines to be blended into tawnies in another.  Interesting factoid:  about 8 million litres of port in their lodges at any given time.  All oak, made in Portugal of french, portuguese or spanish oak. 

 

Taylor’s website is a good one, lots of detailed information about the production processes and the vinyards, full vintage lists, food matching notes for all their wines, and some stunning photographs of the vinyards: 

 

http://www.taylor.pt

 

Wandered back down the hill and along the waterfront, stopped to look at Sandeman’s, which is on the main street along the river front… if you thought you had trouble with flooding, check the records on their door post:  assuming for a moment that man is 6 foot tall, that would make the overall door, including the grilled section above, close to 18 feet overall.  Reading from the top, the dates for the Chieras (Floods) are

 

23/12/1909;  03/01/1962;  28/12/1860;  alongside the middle lintel is 02/02/1825, below that it says Chieras/Floods again, and the date 21/02/1966;  next is 20/01/1853;  23/12/1989;  01/03/1978; the next level was reached on two dates, 09/01/1996 and 07/02/1979;  and at the bottom 06/01/2001.

 

 

 

Thursday, 30 July 2009

 

Return to Gaia this morning and visited another port lodge, this one Calem, right on the waterfront.  Had a full proper tour there, which was interesting – they have a nice little museum which explains how the port is made, with good photos of the harvest and the incredible terraced landscape of the vinyards, and maps of the Douro and its tributaries – and at the foot of the mural was a load of schist – the stone-slabby soil which characterises the vinyards.  Then through to the lodges, the immense vats of ruby port, then the smaller pipes where the various wines are held for blending into the 10, 20, 30 and 40 year tawnies.  Interesting that the large vats are used for 50 or 60 years, the smaller pipes potentially as long (if the wine is being held for a 40 year tawny), and after Calem’s is through with them, they are sold to a whisky distiller to use for their whiskies.  Then a tasting of a white port and a riserva tawny, both pleasant enough going down but a little more of an alcoholic burn to the finish than I would have liked.  Both young wines for prompt drinking, of course, they don’t waste the vintage or older things on the tourists, and I don’t blame them. 

 

One last pretty touristy picture:  sitting on the Gaia waterfront, looking at the barcos rabelos – the boats traditionally used to bring the barrels of wine down river from the vinyards to the lodges in March after the harvest.  Now I gather steel tanker trucks are more the order of the day, but there is still a festival in June to mark the occasion when the boats are all out on the river.  They have a square rigged sail, with a spar across the top of the sail and the lower corners managed by lines either side, as the sail billows out over the barrels of wine carried on the forward half of the boat.  The waterfront opposite is Ribeira, the oldest bit of Oporto, and you can see the upper reach of the Luis I bridge making landfall there at the top right. 

 

 

Friday, 24 July 2009

 

Left Beaune on the 16^th and went to Lyon.  Good choice.  It was the heart of the silk weaving industry for centuries, so there was a marvellous textile museum to keep me amused on a very rainy Friday.  [Look for more on this in the Misc. Topics folder now posted]  Nothing wine related to report – shame on me, I never did drink any Rhone or Beaujolais, the only proper meal I had was at an Italian restaurant less than two blocks from the hotel, that was about as far as I could stagger, I was so tired and hungry.  Good choice – half dozen lovely tiny pan fried escallopes of veal and some wonderful artichoke stuffed ravioli, washed down with an anonymous italian earthy red, which was bliss.  Well, the dessert was pretty blissful too – a layer of red and black currants concealed beneath a good dollop of zabaglione, all of which had been run under the grill.  No the zabaglione did not liquify, it got slightly browned and crisped a bit, which is hard to imagine I know, but it worked, trust me.

 

Lyon is lovely, I recommend it – mini Paris but much more charming, I think.  Parts of the town are near vertical – streets turn into long stairways – but it is worth it, both for the views and the exercise and sheer charm and fascination.

 

Then on to Bordeaux, which disappointed me, I have to say.  So much so about three hours after my arrival Monday I tried to change my ticket to leave the next night, and couldn’t, all trains were booked, so I guess everyone else had the same idea.  Again, nothing wine related to report, except a sighting from the train of a mind bogglingly prairie-like expanse of vines in Pomerol or Lalande.  I made the best of it for two more days, and escaped Wednesday. 

 

Had an interesting journey to Oporto via train.  Departing Bordeaux about 19:00, arriving Irun (just over the line into Spain) around 22:00, where we had to go through a security checkpoint (heaving the backpack off and then back on again, ugh, have some fabulous bruises to remember Irun by), and then on to a truly antiquated train to go rattling across Spain and Portugal overnight, the kind with a corridor alongside enclosed compartments with two banquettes of seats.   I was wandering the corridor trying to find my seat when an elderly portuguese man leaned out of one compartment and took my ticket, then took my hand and dragged me in to show me my seat number, 25.  Fascinatingly, my seat number 25 was in a room with 12, 14 (which was numbered directly above an armrest, ouch!) and 16, then 25, 27 (armrest again) and 31.  Yup, 31. 

 

My companion turned out to be a bit of a character, and bless him he really did his best to converse with me, in Portuguese.  I whipped out my phrase book and did my best in return, and you know, we did ok.  When he realised I was English he grabbed me for a kiss on each cheek and crowed Ronaldo!  Manchester United!  Well, yes, but isn’t he with Real Madrid now?  Didn’t matter.  It seems he (my companion, not Ronaldo) was just returning from Liverpool via Geneva, Frankfurt and possibly the Czech Republic as well, not sure if I got that Czech bit straight.  Not bad for a man on the cusp of 74.  His luggage consisted of two supermarket carrier bags and a bottle of red wine.

 

We finally dropped off to sleep only to be blown off our banquettes by the arrival of the ticket checkers around midnight, ringing a hand bell and turning the lights on, in case the bell didn’t suffice to wake us.  Got almost no sleep – just as I would drowse off, either the train would come to a literally screeching halt at some station, or it would hit a rough patch and start juddering so violently, my poor face would start bouncing against the seat like a jack hammer – also an effective means of waking someone up.  One good thing – so old a train had proper windows that could be opened, which was lovely, thoroughly enjoyed the cool night air after such a hideously hot few days in Bordeaux.  Till the rain started pouring in, and we had to close it.  Luckily that didn’t last long, and by the time I woke again slightly suffocating we’d cleared the rain and could open the window again. 

 

Somewhere around 5:00 AM and Salamanca I gave up any effort to sleep, and it was light enough to see the landscape a bit, on through Cuidad Rodrigo and finally across the border into Vilar Formosa – I knew I was in Portugal from the gorgeous tiled panels on the train station.  My companion was also awake by then, and he resumed his efforts to get me speaking Portuguese, made me repeat the names of all the stations as we stopped, and telling me a bit about them – I remember Santa Comba Dão, which is where Salazar is buried, in a big mausoleum.  He would point out crops and tell me what they were in portuguese, then ask me the english word. 

 

The landscape was fascinating – from Salamanca and well into Portugal it was pretty desolate, uninhabited rather craggy rolling hills and scruffy undergrowth, which implies some growth over too, but there wasn’t.  So many ruins of buildings and walls, I was trying to remember my history (some of it via Georgette Heyer!) of the Peninsular War, and wondering if the ruins dated from that time.  At some point it changed and we were in a countryside of really rich land and deep combes, there was a beautiful river and lake, possibly dammed, not sure.  There were thick forests – some of them were eucalyptus, which we could smell – and then agricultural land.  That’s when I saw my first vinhas – vinyards.  Most were back yard affairs, vines going mad untrimmed, often with olive trees interspersed, or with maize grown alongside.  I did see one stretch of very well ordered and trained and pruned vines on a hillside.  We were passing through Guarda and Coimbra districts, so well south of the Douro, I don’t know if this is a region known for its wine… must start learning.

 

At Coimbra my companion saw me off, wished me Adeus.  He was staying on the train all the way down to Lisbon, which was his home.  I told him I was hoping to work the harvest in the Ribatejo, near Santarém (about 40 miles northeast of Lisbon), and he approved of that – thought Santarém was a nice city – unlike Oporto!  He didn’t seem to think much of Oporto, but then if he was a native of Lisbon he wouldn’t, I suppose.

 

From Coimbra to Oporto on another train, staggered off the train into the metro, found my hotel, and shed the pack to go for a walk round.  Found the Luis I bridge over the Douro and got my first sight of the famous port lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia across the river. 

 

My first and most outstanding taste of Port was on the occasion of getting my permanent visa to remain in England, in March 2001. 

 

One of my friends had been a professional chef, so I asked if he would be willing to lend his talents to creating a wine tasting dinner by way of celebration and thank you to all my gourmand friends who had helped me get through those first four years in England, and sparked my interest in wine.  He agreed – he was thrilled to have the opportunity to make something besides tunafish casseroles for two small boys – and I stumbled into Berry Brothers and Rudd one Saturday morning with a rough menu plan and ideas of what taste sensations I wanted to accompany each course, but no clue what wines would deliver those sensations.  The man who helped me for two very patient hours that morning has remained one of my (only two) favourite wine merchants, even after leaving BBR for Genesis Wines, and became a dear friend. 

 

The dinner was marvellous, I found the menus and placecards when I was clearing the house in May – and kept them.  Menu from memory, wine details from a list I have on my computer, luckily:

 

Killed time before dinner with champagne, as you do.  Louis Roederer Brut, 1990.

 

Starter of roasted fennel and red pepper, with a dry Alsatian Riesling, Cuvée Frédéric Emile, Trimbach 1995.  Had the last bottle left over of this in November 2008, with a Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings, and it was stunning, still.

 

Fish course, I think it was bass, accompanied by a Chassagne-Montrachet, Ruchottes, Domaine Ramonet 1997.  My first taste of white burgundy, and it stopped all of us in our tracks – there was a moment’s appreciative silence when we all took our first sip of that one.

 

Main course was a pan roasted fillet of beef, and boy was it perfect – nicely charred on the outside (never wash your cast iron fry pan) and au point inside.  To wash it down, Côte Rôtie, La Mordorée, M. Chapoutier, 1995.  Another really successful pairing.

 

The dessert was my one culinary contribution – an intense chocolate mousse.  The wine remit was for a “really in yer face ozzie shiraz red fruit bomb.”  Elderton Cabernet Sauvignon – Shiraz – Merlot 1994 delivered that with a vengeance – pure red and black raspberry juice, dry with a kick of acidity and tannins to cut through and wash down that thick dense black chocolate mousse, better than a typical sweet dessert wine would have done.  Very successful.   Subsequently I tried the 1995 with another intense chocolate dessert, and it didn’t work so well – the 1995 was a more complex wine with more flavours going on than just the raspberries, and it didn’t cut the chocolate as cleanly as the 1994 had done.  Fascinating.

 

Finally… on to the cheese course.  I had laid in a half dozen different bottles of things, which personally I never drank.  Reason?  One of my guests brought a gift – a bottle of 1963 Warre Port, which he had had the prescience to buy on release back in the sixties for tuppence. 

 

I had never had port before.  This was a revelation.  I had not drunk very much at all during the meal – a modest glass with each course – so I had capacity, well, thought I had anyway – by the time this was opened.  I was enchanted.  I imbibed freely.  Two memories stand out – well, one memory and a telling photo.  The memory is of waking up the following morning with the taste of that port still clear and clean and gorgeous in my mouth – talk about a finish!

 

The photo is of me, leaning longingly across the arm of a friend who is monopolizing the cheese plate, and you can read his lips, clearly something like “get a grip, woman!”  I’m sure I was begging for more stilton to wash down more port.  Sadly, I do not have an electronic copy to share with you, but it’s one I keep in the photo album I carry with me on all my travels – including this adventure, it’s in my backpack even now.

 

To the friend who brought that bottle along:  thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Over the years I have often remembered that drink, that meal, and that friend very kindly.  What a gift!  Not just the bottle that night, but the love of port for ever after.

 

So, in homage to that evening and bottle, just a very few hours after arrival in Oporto, I found my way out the bridge Luiz I across the Douro and took this photo.  Hopefully you can see, dead centre, just about two lodges below that high rise on the horizon …

 

 

Sunday, 17 May 2009

 

My oldest dearest friend has been living in Lisbon the past two years, and I just came back from visiting her.  Whilst there, we visited two very different winemakers.

 

In the Alentejo, east of Lisbon, we visited the Herdade do Mouchao – many thanks to Simon Field of Berry Bros for the introduction.  The proprietor, Iain Richardson, treated us to a very detailed explanation and walk through of their wine making facilities.  Their methods are very traditional – all picking by hand and yes, the grapes are treaded rather than pressed – and the red wines feature the Alicante Bouschet grape, which is fairly unusual in that the pulp is tinted red, not just the skins, so the wines are quite dark and opaque.  And wonderfully gutsy – we had a tasting, and if ever I faced a cold winter’s night without heat, this is a wine I would reach for to warm and sustain me.  Interestingly, they also make fortified wines – one fortified before the fermentation is complete and the other after fermentation.  We tasted the “we can’t call it port” and it was wonderfully rich, raisinny and very satisfying; Iain said it is made by a sort of solera system, so impossible to date it.  They also make a wine from the second pressing of their grapes and don’t bottle it for commercial sale – but people can bring their own demijohns and buy it at the domaine, as someone was doing while we were there. 

 

The vinyard has an interesting history, in that it has been in the same family for over a hundred years, barring a roughly ten year hiccup after the 1974 revolution, when it was nationalised.  The family regained the property in the mid eighties and set about restoration.  Most of the wine that had been stored or was in process at the time of expropriation was drunk or sold off, and the vinyards were pretty well ruined by neglect during that time.  The one saving grace was the wine maker – Iain told us they have had members of the same family making the wine for three generations now – and he managed to control some of the depradations on the cellars during the “cooperative” years.  As we walked around we saw some of the old bottles that had survived that period lined up for re-corking.  But the vinyards had to be completely re-planted, and some of them are now managed in an interesting two-tier arrangement – alternate vines are trained high or low on the wires. 

 

The Wine Anorak website has a nice write up with photos at http://www.wineanorak.com/alentejo/alentejo_7_mouchao.htm

 

The estate’s own website is at http://www.mouchaowine.pt/#/undefined

 

The other visit was to Casal Branco in the Ribetejo, north of Lisbon.  The very charming sales and marketing manager, David Ferreira, spent the morning with us and we visited not only the wine making facilities, but also walked around the family home and stables across the road and then out to the vinyards.  The wine making processes are a blend of traditional and modern, grapes picked both by hand and machine, depending on the vinyard and wine, but all the grapes are treaded in immense lagares – not quite hip deep wading pools – the wine then piped across to cement vats to complete fermentation and remontage, and thereafter some wines are aged in either french or american oak casks.  I was stunned at the scale of their wine making – this was the first winery I’d visited outside of the Cotes de Nuits, and I couldn’t help thinking just one of their vats would hold the entire production of some Burgundians, and there must have been thirty or forty such.  We went up a staircase to the walkway across the tops of the vats and it was high enough I felt a little dizzy looking down.  David told us some of the production numbers, but they made me pretty dizzy too, so I cannot remember clearly to quote them accurately here.  Wines were being bottled during our visit (they have their own plant on site), and the warehouse was busy too, with cases palletted and ready to ship all over the world – Brasil, Finland and the USA were just some of the destinations I saw tagged. 

 

We then walked out to some of the other buildings – one has an immense still where they used to make the aguardente, also the steam engine that was used until fairly recently to power operations in the cave.  Another small building housed the sparkling wine, made by champagne methods, which was resting peacefully in process of remuage. 

En route to the champagne cave, we were introduced to the winemaker, Dina Luis.  I admit I was surprised to find a woman in charge of so large an operation in what I assumed to be a very traditional trade and country.  But her wines are absolutely marvellous (more on those below), so no wonder. 

David then drove us out to the vinyards.  Understand that the wine making and  the vinyards are just a small part of the family’s estate there (vines account for about 140 hectares out of well over 600).  We drove past fields of potatoes, strawberries were being grown under partial cover, they also raise cereals and have forests, make olive oils, and breed Lusitano horses.   David took us out to Bicos – which is a pre-phylloxera vinyard.  I wish I had had a camera – shame on me for forgetting – the vinyard was wonderful – set alongside an immense field of potatoes was what looked like a long straggling spinney.  In fact, there were vines planted in amongst olive trees, and feathery high grass throughout, on a fairly sandy soil.  The vine trunks were knee high, great gnarled things – as you would be too after 150 years – and the vines were just sprouting madly in a wild mop from the stump.  After the flowering and fruit set the vines would of course be pruned and green harvested and meticulously managed, all by hand.  But no tidy posts and wires and neatly striped rows.  I loved it. 

 

We returned to the winery and went through to a little café, where my friend and I thoroughly enjoyed a tasting with David.  All of the wines, at all price points, were wonderful – good, clean, fresh, lively flavours.  Thinking back now, what strikes me is how the Casal Branco wines made me change my mind – or opened my mind – about some grapes and styles I have not previously cared for.  The first was a white, their Terra de Lobos Branco, regional Ribetejo.  I recognised the sauvignon nose, but was curious to smell – and taste – something much richer and far more interesting:  the Fernao Pires grape.  I am not a sauvignon blanc person – show me a bottle and I’ll show you the kitchen sink – but this blend was very satisfying. 

 

The next revelation was the Quinta do Casal Branco Rosé – again I don’t often enjoy rosés, they are too often rather flavourless and a bit “neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring”  – but this was vividly and cleanly flavoured, again a real pleasure. 

 

David told us the Quinta do Casal Branco Tinto 2004 (the companion red wine) won 3^rd place in the Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Buys of 2008.  But look carefully at the ratings – they were awarded 91 points, versus only 90 for the top 2 wines, which pipped on price alone – USD $9 or $8 versus the Casal Branco at USD $10. 

 

We tasted the Falcoaria Reserva DOC Ribatejo, 2005, which has sold out in bottles, only magnums left, and I brought one home with me.  This wine has also been in the press, the Portuguese magazine Revista de Vinhos rated this the best wine from the Ribatejo Region.  This is the wine made from the pre-phylloxera vinyard, the Bicos.  Definitely young to drink now, this one will run, it has the power and balance.  I am very bad at tasting notes and parsing out all the fruits and flowers by name that are in a nose or on a palate, so I will only say, it was satisfyingly complex, fascinating on the palate.  My passion is for tannic, full bodied, complex and tending-toward-spicy-and-earthy red wines, and this is a beauty, a wonderful alternative to my favourites: cotes de nuits burgundy, barolo, and amarone.

 

Finally, we tried the Monge Espumonte Bruto – their brut sparkling wine, made by the champagne method.  My usual objection to champagne is that it tastes too strongly of yeast, which is not my favourite taste sensation.  The one and only champagne I have ever thought I would actually pay my own money for was Billecart Salmon Clos St. Hilaire 1995 (and this despite having drunk several of the top names in the 1990 vintage as well as plenty of the usual non vintage suspects).  Again, the Casal Branco wine was a very pleasing surprise – flirtatious red fruit on the palate and a steady stream of subtle, tickling bubbles.

 

I was really sad to tear myself away – from the wines, the domaine and our host – and hope to return.  Their harvest begins in August, so if it is as quiet in the vinyards of Burgundy as in the rest of France during the August holidays, perhaps I could scrape up train fare or a bicycle or something and get myself down there.

 

Their website (both Portuguese and English versions) is at http://www.casalbranco.com/casalbranco/

 

As for Burgundy plans… since returning from Vosne Romanee a month ago, I have put my house up for sale – if anyone desires a charming Edwardian cottage in Kent, do get in touch – and I am in process of dispersing the vast majority of my (now former) possessions to friends, charities and an auction house.  This week I will pack up the few things I want to keep, so they are ready to move when and if ever I either settle down again somewhere or sell the house.  After the bank holiday weekend I shall sling on my backpack, go back to the Cotes de Nuits, try to find work in the vinyards, and pray to be accepted to the CFPPA for the autumn. 

 

Briefly digressing from wine matters, and since I have no good photos relating to the subjects of this blog, I will instead offer the reader a good laugh… my friend’s 18 year old son is, like me, averse to the use of scissors on hair:  (I’m the one on the left!)