… so when you think of Portugal, you probably think of Port, yes? And it’s true, Port has been the signature drink of the country for decades. Yet in the last twenty years, still (and sparkling) wine from Lisbon has taken center stage.
Recently I accompanied several other wine educators to Lisbon to learn more about the region and the wine. I came away with a respect for the wine and a tremendous bond with the producers, who ranged from self-made millionaires to foreigners falling in love with the region to wine-making families hundreds of years old.
About Lisbon
Portugal’s entry into the EU paved the way for modernization and raised capital for winemakers, improving cellars, equipment, and vineyards. Because of economic grants and the demands of the international market, many producers are blending with international varietals especially Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and to a lesser extent, Chardonnay.
Meeting Producers
Producers visited included millionaires making quality wine from Rhone varietals to wealthy families planning to build hotels in addition to vineyards on their vast amount of land, and a sprinkle of families who inherited the wineries from their forefathers and ex-patriots who make wine and other businesses (wedding services) as well.
All of the producers were passionate about their wine and their region, and keenly aware of the pressures of succeeding in the international marketplace. We enjoyed wine of surprising quality, and as one can imagine, our fair share of inexpensive table wine.
Each producer visited had several quality lines, though after touring their wineries it was clear that even the least expensive wine was produced with great care. One can surmise that for the majority of the wineries, their biggest concern was creating awareness for wines from Lisbon.
Below are snippets from each producer visited
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Alorna
“Is there any Portuguese wine on the menu,” I often ask when dining in New York City restaurants. From tastings at various trade shows, Portuguese wines often seemed to offer rich, concentrated flavor for a very reasonable price. So tonight starts my sojourn to Lisbon (Lisbon, Portugal), an exotic city that from the air looks like a crowd of hills, beautifully sculptured buildings, and blooming palm trees surrounded by water.
Tonight I am meeting with two key executives from Quinta da Alorna, a company that takes its name from the first Marques de Alorna, who gave his name to the property following the conquest of Fort Alorna in Italy. It is a 2,000 ha property in the Tejo region, planted on the kind of sandy soils best for wine. For the last hundred years it has been family owned, with the owners replanting and modernizing the winery in the last eight years to be in line with the commercial needs of the markets.
With me tonight are two gentlemen, Tiago Macena from the commercial sales department, and Pedro Lufinha, General Manager. We are at one of the most elegant restaurants in the city, Faz Figura, with a two story glass window overlooking the river. It’s just eight-thirty, early by Lisbon time, and the restaurant is just getting started.
The first wine we taste is a white wine made from the naturally acidic Arinto grape, with the aromatic Farnao Pires. The wine has a high but sweet, pleasant acidity, and the finish is like that of the sweet-tart candy though the wine is technically dry with 6 grams of sugar per litre. The other white is made from the Verdelho grape, typical used in the production of port. The wine is deliciously full bodied and goes well with our shrimp starter.
The next two wines are excellent examples of well-crafted red wines from Portugal. The first features the native grape, Touriga Nacional. It is smooth and somewhat floral, with black fruit and vanilla from four months of French oak aging with second year barrels. The next wine is a blend of Touriga Nacional and Cabernet Sauvignon (60/40). The grapes used from this wine were “green harvested” to intensify concentration of fruit, and after fermentation, received twelve months maturation in French oak.
After dinner discussion turned to the commercial market. The addition of Cabernet to the Touriga Nacional is both a good choice in terms of taste, and also for the international market to recognize the more international nature of the Cabernet grape so consumers could get a sense of its style. Perhaps on another trip I will see the property (the manor house is prominently displayed on the label) but from what I can see now, the wines are delicious.
Quinta de Sant’ Ana
“Welcome to Quinta de Sant’ Ana,” says tall, lanky James Frost, the quintessential English gentlemen as he welcomes us to his gorgeous bougainvillea winery, lit up by the sun and expanse of bright blue sky. Sant’ Ana is a seventeenth century structure, a series of charming saffron colored buildings connected by a charming cobblestone walkway. His German inlaws had purchased the property in the 1960s, and today it is a place for growing vines, making wines, and weddings.
First, we tour the vineyards. James explains that he is growing several different varietals, many of them new to Portugal such as Riesling and Pinot Noir. Vine management is rigorous here, with three men employed to work steadily on the vines from February to harvest for there is much to be done. The trellis system is arranged so that the wires holding the vines can be raised as the vines grow. Because of the uncertain weather conditions, workers always need to be managing the canopy. Yet sometimes the weather plays tricks – it could be so cold and rainy in summer that the leaves are thinned and canopy open so the grapes can get sunlight, then suddenly it is blazing hot for a month. Riesling in particular – and surprisingly as it is a German cold climate grape – has difficultly with wet weather, and sunburns easily. Pinot Noir becomes dehydrated if it is left too long in the sun without a shielding canopy.
We tour the winery where some old-fashioned wooden fermentation tanks have been refitted with stainless steel interiors, and there is an old-fashioned lager. For Pinot Noir, the grapes get a cold soak and then three workers (or friends) jump in every four hours for two days to stomp the grapes in Lucy Ricardo fashion from the mid-century television show I love Lucy. Then the grapes are transferred via gravity to the fermentation tank below.
At lunch in a charming reception hall used for wineries, we taste the Riesling and the other varietals produced. The Riesling is delicious, very high in acidity with the signature taste of Petrol. Very little fruit in the 2009 though we are told the 2010 has a great deal of fruit. Weddings are a big business here, with over fifty a year. James and his wife have seven children, from twins of a few months to a twenty year old who calls during our lunch with a question for Dad. The Frosts also sponsor a wine festival to sponsor a local charity. The property is gorgeous, and the wines quite good – you can find them using the wine searcher tool to the right.
Quinta do Pinto
“This is for my son to manage,” says energetic Rita Cardoso Pinto, as we get out of her four-wheel drive and look out at the land she is developing for a new, north-facing vineyard for cool climate grapes. Rita is a woman with a great deal of charm who is managing the enormous property for her father, a businessman from Lisbon who bought it 2003.
The story of how it happened is quite amusing – her father realized he was tired of the city and from a Google map, decided on this location since it was within driving distance of Lisbon. The challenge was that the 120 ha property was not for sale – in fact, an old man with a rifle greeted him at the door.
Yet his five sons were eager to sell, and in the fullness of time did sell the vineyards and gorgeous 17th century property with its enormous oak trees to Mr. Pinto. The vineyards by the house are old vines of a local variety, but Rita has great plans for developing new vineyards and is busy at work putting in draining channels and preparing the land. She is also keen to develop a hotel on the property, which her sister may design as she is an architect.
After the tour of the vineyards we taste the wines with Rita. As is the case with many of the producers, she makes local varieties such as Fernao Pires and Arinto (white grapes, popular as a blend) and the local Touriga Nacional alone and blended with Merlot and sometimes Tempranillo, which here is called Aragonez and has great plans for Syrah as well. A single varietal is also made of the local grape Tinto Miuda. Rita explains her father is a huge fan of wines from the S. Rhone, and presents us with tastes of several wines made from Viognier, Marsanne, and Rousanne. We leave amazed by this woman and her family and wish we could return in ten or twenty years to see how their dreams have come to fruition.
Sanguinhal
“My uncle is arriving just now,” says attractive blond Ana Pereira da Fonseca Reis. Sure enough, as if on cue, her uncle Carlos Joao Pereira da Fonseca pulls up to the driveway and introduces himself. Carlos is a very charismatic and genuine gentlemen who tells us the fascinating story of his winery as he shows us around. His grandfather had found the properties (they have three labels) in 1926. We tour the lager, now a museum of sorts showing how wine was produced a hundred and forty odd years ago, and then the ancient distillery with is black iron pipes. It is in this ancient room with its high ceiling where we have a tasting of all his wines, the region’s typical mix of local varieties and local varieties blended with international varieties.
Carlos is very excited that Gary Vanderchuck, from Wine Library TV, has raved about his wine on his Internet television show (episode 476), causing his agent to sell 100,000 bottles of wine. Here I also taste a new native grape, Castelao, and see that Carlos is also changing from the shorter Bordeaux shaped bottle to the taller Burgundy under market pressures and because Burgundy is easier to stack in stores. I will see Carlos again Monday in New York at the Wines of Portugal tasting.
Quinta de Chocapalha
“I am Swiss by birth,” says attractive blonde Alice Tavares, looking very soignée in an elegant sweater and slacks. “I came to Portugal many years ago and never went back.” I am here at the gorgeous Quinta de Chocapalha estate in Lisbon, just north of Lisbon (formerly known as Extramadura).
This family-owned winery is notable for several reasons. First, the bougainvillea covered stone walls and the modern looking residence (with its shimmering pool) look like a resort from a glamorous lifestyle magazine. Second – and most importantly – a new gravity-fed winery is being built in the hills above.
In the present winery, we see a robotic lagar. Several wineries in this region have actual lagars – whether it is to keep with tradition or because foot-treading improves the wine. We tour the barrel room, with its French Oak barrels, and during the tasting that follows see that this attention to quality pays off. Winemaker is daughter Sandra, who lives in the Duero where she and her husband Jorge Borges run an estate called Pintas. Though the winery uses a combination of local and international grapes that span many price points, my favorite is the 2005 oak-aged Chardonnay that tastes like a Chassagne Montrachet. I am excited to return to see the new winery.
Casa de Cadaval
This gorgeous 5411 acre property has existed here since 1648, and is a winery as well as a Lustiano horse farm, rice factory, grounds for wild black Iberian boar hunting, fishing, breeding of Merulengos, a Iberian cattle breed, and a cork-production with1000 cork-oak trees.
Before learning about the wine, our hosts take us on a haywagon tour of the property. The bright sun shines down on us as we bounce along and view the vineyards, the gorgeous brown horses, and the lake.
Our hostess is Teresa Castro Pereira, who descended from the Portuguese General Nuno Alvarez Pereira, conqueror of the Battle of Aljubarrota which took place on August, 14th 1385. In April 2009 he was canonised by the pope.
Teresa is the fourth female head of CASA CADAVAL in a line that stretches two hundred years. Casa Cadaval has been owned by the Schönborn family since 1648 and Lusitano horses have been bread here for 250 years., The estate is located near the old Roman road that runs between Evora and Lisbon and is gorgeously restored. In 1989 the family decided to modernize the winery, create new brands, and replant some varieties to appeal to the international market.The winery has 18 steel vats, two conical tanks, a pneumatic press and three mills of skin maceration, reaching 320,000 liters of capacity for wine production.
The winery also produces Pinot Noir, which is a particular favorite of its German owner – a very nice one, but our group loved the reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and tried many different vintages of it thanks to the generosity of Madame Teresa. After the extensive tasting of all their product lines, from entry level to reserva, simple traditional whites to expensively made international varieties, we enjoyed some traditional cuisine for lunch.
And the rest …
We visited many spectacular wineries, including Casa Santos Lima with its clay limestone soils from the Superior Jurassic period (a dinosaur bone was recently found here), Quinta do Monte d’Oiro, and Vale d’Algares. As a group, all the winemakers were passionate, some flush with cash, others relying on other sources of income such as weddings, or bed and breakfasts. Lisbon’s wine region is close enough to the city that it can be used by owners as a family vacation resort, and by city-dwellers as a fun “wine country” weekend.
Overall the wines were good. The entry level wines of most producers was acceptable, even good, and at the high end the wines really dazzled. Yet it’s hard to find a bottle of Lisbon wine in New York city, outside of the few Portuguese restaurants. And would one of the many well-crafted delicious wines we tasted “sell” if not hand-sold by a sommelier, waiter, or wine store clerk?
The region has a lot of potential, the wines are already very high quality, with the entry level wines good value for the money and the elegant top wines delicious. Now it’s just a matter of time for the message to reach the international market.