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
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 19th, 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.
Shortly after arriving in Denmark I joined my friends at a
wine tasting sponsored by the American Club in Copenhagen.Naturally it featured American wines (and
some Chilean), which I refuse to discuss in detail, generally far too high
alcohol scorching my mouth and burning off whatever undistinguished flavours
the liquids may have possessed.But in
the course of conversation I learned that there are in fact wines made in
Denmark.
So, I visited Vinoteket, the wine shop here in Gentofte, and
asked.As one man was talking to me
about Danish wines, his colleague overheard us and a moment later set down a
bottle on the counter – apparently it was left over from a tasting the previous
night. We tried a glass then and there
(I do like this shop!), and it was very pleasant, not an aggressive wine, very
soft, round. The producer is
Skaersøgaard, who were the first Danish wine makers authorised once the EU
permitted Denmark to produce wine in 2000.Their wines have won many awards – including their sparkling (we can’t
call it champagne) wine which actually won a Silver Medal at the Effervescents
du Monde competition in Dijon in 2008.
I asked him to order some of the white wine for me – if
possible the one we tasted, or another one he suggested – and he warned me
quantities are minute and he may or may not be able to source it.In the event, they ordered a case, received
six bottles only, and I bought two, at 149 DKR, which is about £18 each.(NB – their sparkling wine goes for 395 DKR,
or about £50).The description from the
Skaersøgaard website ( http://dansk-vin.dk/index.php?cat=1&p=15&pos=5
)is as follows:
Orion Classic 2008
Regional Hvidvin fra Jylland
Let sommervin lavet af druen Orion. Behagelig næse af hyld,
citrus med fyldig indfriende smag. *****5 af 5 stjerner, Vinavisen 2009.
Commended, International Wine Challenge, London 2009
Tør. 11% vol 0,75 l
Vejl. udsalgspris: 145 kr.
I think the wine is made purely from the Orion grape – which
is a german cross of Optima (itself a cross derived from Riesling, Silvaner and
Muller-Thurgau) and Villard Blanc (no longer allowed by AOC regulation, it used
to be planted in Bordeaux and Languedoc-Roussillon).The Orion is bred for early maturity (which is true of both
the grapes in the vinyard and the wines in the bottle) and disease
resistance.I noticed it is also used a
bit in English wines.
As best I can figure from on-line dictionaries, their
tasting notes are elderflower (hyld) and citrus, and fullbodied (fyldig).I would agree with all of that.Pam made another lovely salmon dinner, this
time with a sauce of chopped and reduced tomatoes and cream, and the wine was a
nice companion.
So, if you have a chance… do try it, it was lovely.
Am settled in Denmark for a few weeks visiting my oldest
dearest friend since childhood, Pam, and her husband Chris.Two kids are at university, but one is still
at home together with the two dogs.
Denmark is cold, damp, and very dark… you can actually feel
how much shorter each day is than the prior – something like 15 minutes of
light is lost every day.Shiver.Most days are overcast and at least
occasionally drizzly, and the landscape is very autumnal – haven’t been able to
take any good photos – or rather, I have, but they all look a bit bleak, even
when there is good sunlight.And the
photos the day it snow flurried are really discouraging – though sadly the snow
didn’t show up in the photo, so no point posting those either!
Still, I like the landscape, and would like to see it in
summer.My friends’ house is adjacent to
a public park, a natural small lake and wetlands area surrounded by woods.There are dozens if not hundreds of waterfowl
and seagulls (the seagulls make me a little homesick for Oporto, though the
Danish ones aren’t sitting on my windowsill to screech, like the Portuguese gulls
did!).Also quite a few blue heron – saw
one roosting in a tree, which was a shock!
Pam and Chris have to do quite a lot of entertaining in
conjunction with Chris’s work, so shortly after I arrived I was helping Pam
prepare for a dinner party for eight.Pam is a brilliant cook, and generally one of the most hospitable people
I know, she creates, or rather simply lives every day, in a wonderful ambience.Besides knowing Pam’s home where she grew up,
and the family summer home in New Hampshire, her dorm room and post-university
flat, I’ve seen the homes she has created for her own family in England, Italy,
Switzerland, Morocco, Portugal and now Denmark (Bulgaria is the only one I
missed in the past 13 years or so), and the minute I walk in it is home to me,
too – I recognise so much of the furniture, books and tchatchkas accumulated
over the course of a lifetime, half of which has been spent travelling – it’s
an incredible visual history, and a wonderful familiar environment for family
and friends, but also fascinating and welcoming for the near-strangers who are
entertained each month in the course of business.
This dinner party was, I think, typical – guests were
punctual, warmly welcomed by host and dogs (one gentle and curious if
intimidatingly massive, the other small, noisy and cheerful [oops – that’s
describing each of the two dogs, not meant to be describing Christopher in
there !!]).Guests were immediately set at
their ease with drinks and nibbles to hand, any necessary introductions
smoothly made and conversation spontaneous, warm and easy – much of which I
think is contributable to the ambience and setting.If the house were rigidly formal or
impersonal or decorated more for show than family life, then it would be much
harder for people to relax and open up so quickly.We had just enough time to get to know one
another a bit over drinks in the living room before transitioning to the dinner
table.
Food and wine:bald
list to start…
With drinks in the living room:nuts and olives, spiced shrimp, parmesan
garlic crackers and a wonderful brie baked with praline marmelade.Personally I could have made a meal of just
the brie, and probably will do for myself one cold and dreary day, with a good
book and some wine.The guests were
offered drinks if they wished, or red or whitewine – and I’ll talk about the wines in a minute.
First course was a tomato, shallot and goat’s cheese tart
with a green salad and cranberry dressing, main course was salmon with a sauce
of apples and cream served with asparagus and wild rice, and the pud was a
marsala pot de crème with an almond cookie and mixed berries served alongside
(currants, raspberries and blueberries), and marsala for those who wished to
drink the wine with the pud.After
dinner coffee and tea was served in the living room with chocolates.
Pam devises her own menus and does nearly all the cooking
herself from scratch – e.g. she made her own spiced shrimp and parmesan garlic
crackers, the marmelade on top of the brie was homemade from the citrus trees
around their house in Lisbon last year – or maybe it dates from the citrus
grove surrounding their Moroccan home a few years previously, can’t be
sure.I do remember in Morocco a friend
of theirs was an italian woman who harvested the lemons from their garden to
make limoncello, then gave them a bottle, which was luscious.
The only food offered that she hadn’t prepared herself were
the little chocolate dipped almond biscuits that accompanied the pot de crème
(and they came fresh from the bakery in the village).Preparations can be a bit fraught at times,
for instance she brought home what she thought was a piece of fresh horseradish
to grate and use in the sauce over the salmon.After grating and tasting a bit, we concluded it wasn’t really
horseradish (only been here two months – command of Danish does not yet extend
to the word for horseradish!), so she rummaged through cupboards and freezer
and improvised – I think she said there was ginger in there, I’m not sure what
the final mixture was, but the dish turned out very well and was served forth
graciously – no inkling at the table of kitchen dramas behind the scenes.Later she told the story on herself and
brought out the packet of mystery veg to ask the Dane who was present what
it was – he confirmed it was not horseradish, though I don’t think we ever
found an english word to translate whatever it was.
The wines… before dinner, besides spirits or mixed drinks
there were two wines available – a Louis Jadot Beaujolais Villages Combe aux
Jacques 2007 which was a very pleasant supple fruity wine, and a Chilean
Chardonnay Reserva, Leyda Valley. Viña Leyda.The
chardonnay was a nice clean wine – no fermentation in oak, and no malo-lactic
fermentation permitted either, so it’s very fresh, citrussy without being too
tart – there’s a touch of honey in there to keep it from being too sharp or
aggressive.Both of these wines sell for
about 50 dkr, which works out to around USD $10 or around GBP £6.50 or so –
both good candidates for “house wine” for all the entertaining my friends do,
as well as for their own routine drinking and cooking consumption.
To get a little perspective – my wine education to date has
mostly been at the high end of the old world:a series of tutored tastings of the top burgundies in an intensive one
village at a time format, italian feasts designed to showcase the barolos,
barbarescos, valpolicellas and amarones of top makers, the only Spanish wine I
know is Vega Sicilia (a producer dinner one night and a tutored tasting of
their full range across several vintages another time), almost the only
rieslings and gewurtztraminers I can recall by both name and taste are Zind
Humbrecht (again from a producer dinner, as well as other random tastings), my
real introduction to claret occurred when I tasted all seven of the legendary first
growth clarets of a single vintage side by side in one night… you get the
drift!Lucky me, but it means my palate
memory and benchmarks are well beyond my means, so tasting and learning about
the more modest end of the market is a bit of a revelation… If I sound wide
eyed and astonished that I can really enjoy a wine at this price level, well… I
still am!Frankly, I hope I never lose
my sense of pleasure at finding a good wine at any price.
With dinner we had a lovely Alsatian riesling (so now I have
a second one for my palate memory list), Domaines Schlumberger Riesling Les
Princes Abbés 2006, which was quite dry – I’ve forgotten the numbers quoted to
me, but it had half or less of the residual sugars of other rieslings I looked
at.The dryness and citrus quality of
the wine was a good foil to the rich sauce of sautéed apples and cream over
excellent salmon.(Actually, I just
googled the wine and found the domaine’s own website, and a really interesting
tasting note – very technical – take a look:http://www.domaines-schlumberger.com/riesling-les-princes-abbes-2006,en-45023.html
)
Pam is very lucky – and I have been too! – that she has an
excellent wine shop in the village, Vinoteket.I have had occasion to work with all three of the sommeliers there to
pick wines for Pam’s entertaining, and they have all been patient,
knowledgeable and just plain fun to talk with.And they have all had a bottle handy for a tasting every
time I’ve visited.Take a look at their
website – even if it is in Danish and you can’t actually read most of it, the
wines are universally comprehensible and they have a good and interesting range:http://www.vinoteket.dk
There is another dinner party tomorrow night, and we’ve
chosen a very promising looking wine for that, also the gentlemen at Vinoteket
have ordered some Danish wine for us to try, should arrive later in the week,
so look for a report on that soon, too.
I do love travelling, and I’ve been so lucky on that score
the past year or two, and boy I do love good food and wine… all of which would
be not nearly so much fun without the wonderful people, old friends and new,
every stop of the way.Despite some
troubles the past year or more, I have been incredibly fortunate on this side
of things.
Always try to conclude a posting with some evocative image…
so after all, one landscape photo taken out in the woodlands / marshlands near
by, very autumnal…
Very much a
drives-you-back-to-the-fireside-with-a-glass-of-red-wine kind of image.
