Portuguese Wine Tour Report
Portuguese Wine Tour Report
Those of you who follow our Facebook page will know that Barb and I had a fabulous visit to Portugal earlier in the fall. Little did I know the depth of history and tradition that makes Portugal one of the most formative wine scenes in the world. For most of my personal wine journey I have thought of Port as something for old men with cigars. I brought back a whole new appreciation, and not just of Port, but of the still wine scene in Portugal as well.
The centrepiece of our visit was an eight-day river cruise up the Douro River. Pictured above is our boat taken from the vantage of Kopke Port vineyard, the oldest in the Douro. The valley was some of the most stunning landscapes I have ever seen in my life. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it has been farmed continuously for more than 5000 years, with the history of wine cultivation going back almost 2000 years to Roman times. For over 60 miles, the steep schist hillsides on both sides of the valley are terraced up almost 1000 feet above the river, mostly with wine grapes but also with olives, lemons and almonds. It is unendingly visually arresting.
This intrigued me no end. Why would early agriculturists decide that they wanted to grow crops in one of the most inhospitable environments imaginable? The answer was in the dirt. The schist and granite rocks that line these hills are almost erosion proof. Winter rains percolate through to the subsoil to feed summer crops bathed in heat and sun. Because the riverbanks are so steep, they need to be terraced in order to make cultivation possible. And because the soil composition is so heavily rocky, the terraces stay in place regardless of the volume of winter rains.
Most of the terraces run horizontally across the hillside, making machine pruning and harvesting impossible. But newer vineyards are being planted on less severe slopes and rows are aligned vertically to make it possible for machinery to pass between the rows.
I learned that the Douro River Valley was the world's first demarcated wine region. Having been defined in 1756, it led to the eventual demarcation of world famous regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Chianti. But the making of fortified wine predates that watershed by a century, with British wine merchants, looking for alternative sources to the French wine that had been embargoed due to a trade war between England and France, discovering monks adding grape brandy to wine to protect it from oxidization during the long voyage from Portugal to England, in the 1670s. Thus was born the Douro's greatest export--Port.
One of the first imported wines I ever tasted was called Mateus, a sugary concoction that impressed me. I've long since left Mateus behind (although it's probably still the best selling still wine from Portugal) but I did have a chance to visit the Mateus Palace, pictured above, a family residence that for decades adorned the front of the Mateus bottle. Seems as if the wine and the palace have nothing to do with each other. Still, the Italian rococo palace was a visual pleasure.
One of the variations that port wine making has given the world winemaking community is the virtue of long barrel aging. Pictured above is the barrel cellar at Taylor Fladgate, one of the largest port producers in the world. Literally thousands of barrels all numbered and vintage dated store the long-aged wines that become the tawny ports so valued by port connaisseurs. The bold red varietals that combine to make port are high in acid and tannins, making them perfect for long aging. When fortified with grape spirit, these wines will literally last a century. Some are still for sale on winery shelves, but they'll cost you a pretty penny.
While visiting the Taylor Fladgate port house we had the opportunity to taste some fantastic ports--two vintage ports, which are bottled while young, and two aged tawny ports, which get extended barrel exposure to bring out the honey, caramel and citrus flavours for which they're famous. Phillipe at Taylor's guided us through the tasting, including 30-year-old and 50-year-old tawny ports, which were amazing.
And it wasn't just fortified wine that impressed us. The brawny reds and refreshing whites of the Douro are world class. They exhibit that unique Portuguese character that distinguishes port wines from all other wines in the world. Built for aging, they are fantastic food wines and made with grape varieties not cultivated anywhere else in the world. I stopped into a wine bar in Porto and had their top wine-tasting flight. It was led by one of the most interesting and unique wines I had ever tasted, a 1967 vintage Collares Reserva Tinto. This wine was 59 years old but still had a zesty fruit freshness that belied its age. Just 11% alcohol by volume, this wine, made from the Ramisco grape, kept evolving as I tasted it. The wine bar server told me this tiny wine region is the only region in Europe in which grapevines are rooted on their own rootstock. Because the soils are mostly sand, the bug that killed European vineyards in the late 19th and early 20th centuries couldn't survive. Some of these vines date back over 100 years. I am told that when first bottled, the Colares wines are so tannic and acidic they are like drinking tin. It takes a decade or two for age to soften those tannins and acids. Every sip I had of this wine was different as it evolved in the glass. The tasting included three other long-aged Portuguese wines but I kept coming back to this one, mystified as to how a seemingly thin and old wine could show such verve and complexity.
We both came away with a great impression of the wine scene in Portugal. Unabashedly Old World, unapologetically Portuguese, and globally influential, whether the historic significance of Port wine among world wine styles, or the stubborn idiosyncratic winemaking of still wines, Portugal deserves a place among the world's great wine scenes. Of course, no good wine trip would be complete without returning home with some treats for the wine cellar, to be savoured at some future date as we reminisce about the wonders of Portugal.
Yours in wine, Barb & Keith
Cork & Barrel Spirit Merchants #118 - 2187 Oak Bay Ave, Victoria, BC V8R 1G1, Canada (250) 590-1940 https://www.corkandbarrel.ca
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