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Portugal Wine: A (Brief!) Overview

The least expensive flight to Lisbon on TripAdvisor is currently $774!  For FAR less money, you will be able to approximate that experience at our next tasting.  The National Tasting Project this year features the Wines of Portugal.  As usual, your Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Wine Society is here to help!

Most of us will recognize Port as one of the country’s most famous wines, but that’s only one of many wines produced in Portugal. Madeira is a beautiful Portuguese Atlantic island and has a great fortified wine. Historians say that this wine was the one used by the delegates of the Continental Congress to toast while signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776!

Types of Portuguese Wine

THE REDS

Alfrocheiro: Used more in Alentejo and Dão, this grape adapts quite well throughout the country’s climate and is becoming more and more popular. Alfrocheiro wines are characterized by aromas of red fruits and floral hints. They are very balanced when it comes to tannins, alcohol and acidity levels.

Alicante Bouschet: Originally a French grape variety, this grape is characterized by its intense color. Its resistance to warm weather is the reason why it is being used in Alentejo region.

Tinta Barroca: Mostly used in Douro region, it’s resistance to plagues and infection makes it popular, as it requires less attention. It produces soft and easy-drinking wines with higher alcoholic content.

Tinta Roriz (Aragonez): This grape has a higher sensitivity to rain. It offers good potential for aging and its wines are normally characterized by its strong tannins and hints of red fruits like plumbs and cherries.

Tinto Cão: One of the main five grape varieties used in the Douro region. Strong, solid tannins and high acidity levels offer the producer a good potential for ageing.

Touriga Franca: This one gains its recognition mainly in Douro wines (DOC and Ports). Its average yield produces high quality wines with intense aromas and strong, solid tannins, but smooth in taste.

Touriga Nacional: It’s the grape variety present in some of the best wines the country has to offer. Originally giving us the best Dão wines, it is in Douro and Alentejo where it’s used in more varietal productions. This grape produces very aromatic wines. It also offers soft and smooth tannins and a good ageing potential.

THE WHITES

Alvarinho: Its main regions are the Minho River Valley and the Spanish Rias Baixas. It’s characterized by its strong acidity levels and strong citric aromas.

Antão Vaz: Considered by some to be the main white grape variety in Alentejo. Highly resistant to dry and warm climates. It presents intense citric and mineral aromas with a firm acidity level.

Arinto: Also known as Pedernã. It can be found in young wines and its light acidity and citric aromas make it a good choice on warm days.

Loureiro: Easily and most successfully found in the Vinho Verde region. (Despite the literal translation, please don’t refer to it as “Green Wine” as locals will not understand what you are talking about!) It produces intense aromas, citric and floral hints.

Viosinho: From Douro and Tras-os-Montes, this grape variety is also used as a blending variety in Port.

FORTIFIED WINES

In these types of wines we have a common characteristic: alcohol is added before the fermentation process ends, interrupting the sugar transformation into alcohol.

Port Wine: Port is produced out of red and white grape varieties and it can be divided into two types of ageing.

Tawny: Aged in barrel by oxidation. Tawnies are further divided into categories: Tawny Reserve, Tawny with age indication and Colheita .

Ruby: Wine protected from oxidation. Rubies are divided into categories: Vintage Character, Late Bottle Vintage and Vintage (the latter also being known as the King of Ports).

SPARKLING WINES

Portugal produces white, red and rose sparkling wines. You can find decent sparkling wines throughout the country but it’s in Douro, Távora-Varosa and Bairrada where you can find the best examples.

Check the blog soon for updates, times, dates and news!

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Saúde!

Portuguese Wine:  Some Things You Should Know

As you know, the National Tasting Project this year will be focused on Portuguese wine. There is so much to say about Portuguese wine that it could fill a book, but don’t worry! For the purposes of this blog post we’re going to start a simple, comprehensive and (relatively) brief approach to summarizing this wine country.

Let’s get started. Saúde!

Jimi Hendrix enjoyed Mateus rosé.Not so long ago (Okay. It was long ago), journalist Pedro Garcia asked Jimi Hendrix if he knew that when he was photographed with a bottle of Mateus in his hands, he was in fact drinking a Portuguese rosé.

There is more to Portuguese wine than just port. While port is what put Portugal on the world wine map, today there are many winemakers producing dry wines — red, white, rose, and even sparkling wine.

A Portuguese dry wine is not port. Even if a traditional Port producer makes a dry wine. Port is a fortified wine, meaning that it’s been beefed up by adding a wine spirit, such as brandy, during the fermentation process. The dry wines are fermented dry and are not sweet. No wine spirit or brandy is added. They are made just like any other dry wine from anywhere else.

Most grape varietals for wine grown in Portugal are native, and you’ve probably never heard of them. They include Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (same as Spanish Tempranillo), Touriga Franca and Baga for reds, and  Encruzado, Alvarinho (Spain’s Albarino), Maria Gomes for whites. If you’re bored with the same old Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, look to Portugal for variety. Blending is common in Portugal, although you can find single varietal wines. Each wine region in the country is known for a particular blend.

Vinho Verde is a wine region, not a grape varietal. This white is most likely the one wine, besides port, that you may have heard about. Vinho Verde translates as green wine, but they are referring to the fact that it ripens early. It is light, crisp, refreshing and low in alcohol (9%-10% abv). It is a blended wine, and by law winemakers can use 47 varietals, although the most common are Arinto (Pederna), Loureiro, Alvarinho and Trajadura. You might find Vinho Verde also has a little pétillance (fizz). Most Vinho Verde wines sell for less than $10.

Port comes only from the Douro region, and the Alto Douro is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Wine has been made in the Douro for more than 2,000 years. The Douro valley runs along the Douro River, from Spain to the port city of Oporto, on the Atlantic coast. Through the years, the wineries have carved steep terraces for grape growing along the banks of the Douro, and there is a unique soil called schist. It looks like layers of flinty rocks.

Portugal is the 11th largest wine producer in the world. In a country that’s 575 miles long and 138 miles wide, 500,000 acres are planted to grapevines, according to ViniPortugal. In comparison the US ranks fourth in total wine production. The US is Portugal’s seventh largest export market.

Portuguese wines carry an authenticity seal. Look on the back label for the seal. Each wine region issues its own version.

Quinta on the label means wine estate. This is similar to Bodega in Spain or Chateau or Domaine in France.

Tinto on a label most likely means that’s a red wine in the bottle. Tinto translates as tinted or colored, which for wine usually means red. You may also see this term on bottles of Spanish red wines.

Now that you’ve got Portuguese wines on your radar, start looking for them on restaurant wine lists and on the shelves of your local State Store. If you can’t find any, start asking for them.  Get your friends to request Portuguese wines. You’ll be drinking really well for not a lot of money.

Don't forget to check the blog often for tips, news and wine-related items!

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