Portugal

Spain’s western neighbor is famous for its two rich, sweet fortified wines, Port and Madeira. Port, often served after a meal, originated from the Duoro Valley in northern Portugal, which still produces the world’s best Ports. Their high alcohol content (up to 20 percent) and sweetness are the results of adding neutral grape alcohol or brandy during the fermentation, which inhibits the process.

The rich flavor of true Madeira, from Portugal’s Madeira Islands—and not the imitation dessert and cooking wines made in the US—benefits from a heating and oxidizing process that emulates the baking the wine underwent while being transported great distances by ship centuries ago. The finer Madeiras are aged for years in wooden casks, developing a tangy, burnt-caramel, slightly bitter flavor.

Since joining the European Economic Community in 1987, Portugal has also emerged as a producer and exporter of red and white table wines, which have found a fertile American market. With renewed pride in their homeland’s grapes—many grown nowhere else in the world—and unswerving dedication to quality improvement, Portugal is entering a wine-growing renaissance. Some of the nation’s better-known producers of table wines are Caves Aliança, Ferreira, and Sogrape.

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Portugal Wine Regions

Most of the wine has traditionally been made by cooperative wineries but the potential for higher quality production in selected parts of the region is staggering. Renowned oenologist Dr. Richard Smart was recently quoted in Time magazine as saying that "If I had a chance to start a vineyard anywhere in the world, I would do so in the Alentejo."

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Bairrada: The terrain of this gently undulating, heavily forested coastal region south of Oporto produces a preponderance of red wines from the Baga grape on its largely calcareous clay soils. Despite proximity to the Atlantic, rainfall is moderate and the climate is temperate. There are less than 40 estate bottlers among the close to 5,000 vineyard owners working the 30,000 acres planted to grapes. Vines in Bairrada are generally freestanding, low and untrellised, although some wineries now train the canes on wires. 80 percent of the vines produce red grapes, while most of the region's white grapes are used for sparkling wine. Minimum alcohol levels are 11% and the reds, many of which are capable of long bottle development, must be at least 1 year old before sale. Only 15% of the production qualifies for DO.

This is an area of strong wine traditions. Baga is the primary grape (50% of the blend by law), its wines tending to the deeply pigmented, heavy, roughly tannic side of the spectrum. This character was traditionally exaggerated by winemaking techniques that extracted maximum tannin and color from the grapes. More recently the goal has been to produce a suppler more fruity red wine, so many of the red grapes are destalked before fermentation. The area has become renowned for the many small estates that have begun to bottle their own wine. Bairrada may not be a place to search for polished red wines, but it's a great source of complex, rustic, hearty, gamey red wines in all price ranges. For the most part, acidity levels are adequate to balance the fruit and tannin.

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Bucelas: "Back in the late 19th Century, no British wine list would have been complete without Bucelas," writes Richard Mayson, in Decanter (May 2000). This tiny demarcated region near Lisbon is undergoing a revival after almost being forced out of production entirely by encroaching suburbs, situated on a protected valley crossed by the Tranção River, Bucelas is the name of a village. The surrounding region's white wines show classic balance and refinement. Arinto, a white grape also grown elsewhere Portugal, is the driving quality factor here.

Dão: Demarcated in 1908, the Dão is an historic red wine-producing region centered around the town of Viseu and encircled by sheltering mountains. Renowned on the export markets for its big hearty wines, the Dão had for decades been dominated by cooperative cellars rather than private companies. In fact, between the 1950's and the mid 1980's cooperatives held a virtual monopoly in the production of the region's wines as laws mandated that virtually all wines made at individual quintas be sold in bulk to shippers. Fortunately this situation has been reversed, and although cooperatives still produce 70% of the Dão's wines, today more than 20 quintas bottle their own production. In this mountainous, rugged terrain, protected from Atlantic rains and winds, many of the vines are bush trained low to the earth. Soils are poor, mostly sandy granite, with some schist. Weather in the summer is generally dry and mild.

Dão reds tend to be concentrated and nuanced wines, which is partly a function of the region's predominantly older vines, but there is a great range of diversity in style and fruit expression. One encounters delicious wines that are grapey and fresh, some that are plummy and richly constituted, and others that are big, roasted and tannic. Each characteristically exhibits a suggestion of earth and leafy vegetation, of aromatic herbs and tobacco that lends an edge to the flavors and heightens complexity. Requirements are that the wines age for 18 months before sale. In contrast to the neighboring Douro, 1996 was an outstanding vintage, while 1997 and 1998 were generally weak, plagued by rain at the harvest. 1999 and 2000 promise top quality.

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Douro: Despite its fame as the home of Port, the world's most renowned fortified wine, the Douro actually produces greater quantities of table wine. Whereas the region for Port production was demarcated by law in the mid-18th Century, the Douro was only established for table wines in 1982. The style of the fruit grown here makes this one of the most exciting regions in terms of its potential appeal to the American consumer. What we expect from the Douro are the darkest berry flavors of any of Portugal's red wines. In this predominantly hot climate the wines tend to be opaque, very ripe and resonantly fruity in style. Even the more modest wines show a degree of flavor intensity the American palate favors. The finest are made with the same 5 noble grape varieties that produce the best quality Ports (identified as a result of research undertaken for a World Bank project in the 1970's as Touriga Naçional, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Barroca and Tinta Cao) and they are grown in rocky soils that are both schistous and granitic. Interestingly, their aromas overlap those you might find in young Port: walnuts, chocolate, tobacco, mint, blackberries. The red wines must age for 18 months prior to bottling.

Many of the top Port shippers have begun recently to produce dry wines of outstanding quality while other single quinta Port producers are now also involved in table wine production. Where possible these companies have been block-planting the varietals to make harvesting more efficient because some, like Tinta Barocca, ripen earlier while others, like Touriga Naçional, remain on the the vine developing flavor until later in the fall. This more sophisticated harvesting regime is something we associate with regions like Bordeaux and it is a promising innovation in Portugal.

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Estremadura: A gently hilly region to the northeast of Lisbon with generous sunshine in the growing season as well as an Atlantic influence to the climate. Estremadura is a Vinho Regional that produces a good percentage of Portugal's Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay. The more moderate climate allows for a balanced development of these varietals. Included within its boundaries are three of Portugal's oldest DOs: Colares, Carcavelos and Bucelas.

Palmela: A sunny district of low hills and sandy soils near the Sado River and Atlantic Ocean that has recently achieved DO status. Palmela's maritime-influenced, warm climate experiences minimal rain during the growing season. Its sandy soils are planted primarily to Periquita and it produces mostly soft, agreeable, early maturing wines.

Ribatejo: A fertile, somewhat flat, sunny region in east central Portugal which until recently was known for bulk wines and other forms of agriculture. Although it's easy to produce very high yields in Ribatejo, today some of Portugal's most exciting wines, from a price/value standpoint, originate here. The better quality wines are made on stony sandy soils in the south of the region, or clay soils in the north. Cooperatives control most of the region's production and many use imported grape varieties.

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Vinho Verde: A unique Portuguese wine style that is also the name of the demarcated region that occupies all of northwest Portugal. In general the DO region, which is the largest quality wine zone in Europe, is damp and misty, and the low fertility soils are sandy and granitic, but there is also quite a bit of geographic diversity. For instance, in the area around Moncão and Melgaço, the hilly sub-region bordering Spain's province of Galicia to the north, many of the wines show fuller body and higher alcohol. This is the only zone where Alvarinho is authorized and the wines produced from this fashionable varietal here bear a striking resemblance to the Rias Baixas wines made across the Spanish border. The area around Penafiel produces wines of finesse and perfume, lighter in body but also outstanding.

Traditionally vines in this vast region were trained very high to remain free of fungus and other vineyard pests. Today this entire vast region is being revitalized with new investment in state of the art equipment and fresh ideas. Vines are being planted lower, on trellises and there are producers experimenting with wood aging, although the wines must be classified as Vinho Regional Beiras, because the authorities consider them atypical for the region. Vineyard holdings in Vinho Verde tend to be small, with the average plot less than 2 acres in size. As might be expected there are many variations in Vinho Verde styles based on the vinification techniques as well as the soil and climate variations, although one constant is that most of the wines require drinking within a year. Vinho Verdes differ, however, in the degree of carbonation they retain, as well as in the extent to which they are sweetened, if at all. Top Vinho Verde may have a faint spritz but the most interesting wines are dry and without appreciable spritz. The most distinctive are so subtle and nuanced that sugar would distort their flavors. There is also differentiation based on alcohol levels. At one extreme the Alvarinho-based wines veer into the 12 or even 13% range, whereas most of the other wines are very light-bodied, ranging from 8.5 to 10%.

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