Tag: Costa News

FIRST PUBLISHED IN COSTA NEWS SL SEPTEMBER 2010

WHEN IN PORTUGAL . . .

PART TWO

 If you haven’t read part one you may like to log onto www.costa-news.com and click Cork Talk? Our summer holiday in Portugal this year taught me that it isn’t a bad idea to do as the Portuguese do!

 I wrote about Port, the eponymous fortified wine that is now world-famous – but I dealt only with red Port and I didn’t touch on the regular wines of this other Iberian country. Nor did I mention a perhaps little known, delicious secret! All will be revealed in this article plus a comment on nature, the environment and indeed the planet!

 All this for such a little cost – what a top newspaper this is!

 White Port, whilst not being classed as a secret, is certainly not widely known nor imbibed outside of this, the most westerly European country. No wonder considering Ernest Cockburn’s comment in the early 20th Century (yes that Cockburn!)  – ‘The first duty of Port is to be red!’ It’s a shame as White Port can be a super aperitif.

 Most White Port is quite sweet. It can be made from 30 different white grape varieties, Moscatel being on commonly used. Fermentation is arrested at roughly the same point as with Red Port, but grape spirit is usually used instead of brandy. It has to have aged for 2 years but ageing is almost always in stainless steel or epoxy lined cement tanks.

 However those which are aged in oak take on a different darker colour and lovely different taste nuances. Often such white ports are on the drier side. I had one a few years ago, Churchills I recall, and it was excellent.

 I wish we’d had more time in Portugal as I rediscovered there a fortified wine that I haven’t tasted for over 15 years and had mostly forgotten about! It’s something of a secret in that it is largely left undiscovered in the UK and in Spain, but in Portugal it rocks!

 Madeira is a small island administered by Portugal about 1,000km from Portugal and 750km from Africa. It’s also the name of a super wine whose history is fascinating and whose taste goes from the lovely to the sublime! I was put on the spot and asked to identify it, tasted blind in the wine merchants, Loja do Vinho. Set against a white port, which I did identify correctly, the Madeira was drier, with a faintly brownish colour. It struck a very pleasant chord, but no I couldn’t place it.

 In fact Madeira, which the Portuguese certainly do do not only when in Portugal but wherever they are in the world (Brazil is a big market) is a fascinating wine and subject and will therefore have a column to itself soon.

 So that moves us on to the regular wines of Portugal. Always in the shadow of their more illustrious bedfellow, Port, the wines of Portugal have in fact been in existence for far longer. Indeed it was from the wines of 16th Century Portugal that Port was first made. Records aren’t clear as to when Portugal first made wine but it is known that there existed a healthy wine trade between Portugal and England as long ago as the 12th Century!

 Clearly that’s long enough for the Portuguese to have developed some super wines and often using wholly indigenous varieties. I was recently chatting with Mariano, chief winemaker at Grupo Bodegas Castaño, who is somewhat in awe of the number of varieties that are Portuguese alone and not in fact grown anywhere else.

 Those of us who fear that the world’s wine will eventually be homogenous with only a few different varieties and with little to distinguish between the same varieties grown in different countries would

do well to move to Portugal. Here there has been little influence by the outside wine world, the ubiquitous Cabernet for example has made few inroads into Portuguese wine production. Why should it and it’s like, when Portugal is so rich in its own very individual vines that produce such aromatic and rich, deeply coloured wines?

 There are even vines growing in Portugal that have yet to be identified! But those which are doing very well with huge potential too are for example, for white wine: Alvarinho (yes, Albariño in Spain), Louriero, Fernao Pires and Arinto; and for reds: Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Baga, Castelao Frances and Tinta Roriz (aka Tempranillo).

 It’s a question of suck it and see! We tried quite a few in our 10 days there, reds and whites – it’s tough you know, researching wines for Cork Talk! We even tried an Espumante, a sparkling wine in the style of cava – Fita Azul Reserve Brut was refreshing but had little on the nose or palate, however.

 Plan Alto, Douro DO, Vinho Branco (white) Reserva 2009 was quite elegant on the palate if a little lacking in character; but Casal Da Coelheira 2009 from DO Ribatejo using Fernao Pires and Chardonnay was a super wine, though the packaging, I think, need further consideration. Vinho Verde Alvarinho 2009 has a super, inviting fruit laden nose, though on the palate it is a little thin. I think this would be my general criticism of the whites we tried – compared to similarly priced whites from Spain the Portuguese wines were a little thin, albeit pleasant, aromatic and refreshing.

 We tried several reds. I liked the youth and vitality of Marques De Borba 2009 from DO Alentejo; the added depth of Vinha Das Leres, DO Alentejano with it’s cool label; and the equal favourites – Vila real Douro DO Reserva 2007 whose indigenous grapes, several mentioned above, give the wine its deep colour and rich flavour. This wine shared first place with a wine that we brought home with us.

 Meia Pipa 2007 is readily available and doesn’t cost a lot of money but it is a super, deeply flavoured and coloured wine with some treacle and liquorice on the nose, subtle 12 months oaking and a medium long finish.

QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS BRING ABOUT CHANGE

Article from Costa News (www.costa-news.com) March 2010

Wine Questionnaire Results Bring About Industry Change

CHANGE AFOOT?

WINE DRINKING QUESTIONNAIRE

STIMULATES BODEGA RE-THINK

 I’m writing this on the eve of my biennial trip to Barcelona, Catalunya’s capital which also becomes the focal point for Spanish wines every other March as the itinerant Alimentaria organisation once again takes a grip on this, perhaps Spain’s most vibrant city.

 This year, no doubt mostly because of the current financial crisis that continues to darken bodegas’ doors this normally humungous fair is now only huge, taking just one of the massive pavilions rather than the two of all the previous years that I’ve been attending. However someone needs a slapped wrist, or worse, as in fact there is also another famous wine fair going on at the same time, ProWein in Düsseldorf!

 Bodegas are stretched enough financially without expecting them to have a significant presence at both events. The enormous expense of exhibiting at these fairs has to be budgeted for and when the anticipated expenditure forms land on the accountants’ desks with a resonant thud – well it can be considered as a stand too far!

 That said there will nevertheless be an enormous presence in Barcelona where all the DO’s of Spain will be represented and where there will be hundreds of bodegas showing off their wares. I love it – it’s a chance to meet up with old friends in the business to see what they are doing new, but also to see what other bodegas and areas of production are about too.

Six years ago I came back with the news that there was a major change in the Spanish wine world. Here there has never been any arrogance shown about making and marketing wine. A healthy marriage of time-served tradition and modern innovation continues to exist in Spain where fathers who learned from their fathers before them are advising their sons (and daughters) who in turn are adding their newly learned methods and technology – it’s very much a reciprocal relationship. The result is that Spain rides in the vanguard of modern European winemaking as well as in modern marketing techniques.

 Three Alimentarias ago there was a noticeable change in the labels that bodegas were using for their wines. Gone were the gothic lettering and drawings of old churches, often all covered in wire too. New eye-catching designs were all the rage then and they continue to be so – with different colours being used and all manner of ways of convincing the consumer that this wine is the one to choose before the others. Look at the wine shop and supermarket shelves. The graphic designers and artists have been given their head and wine bottles really are attractive nowadays, enticing us to buy.

 However the results of a questionnaire I recently asked people to complete suggests that wine label design needs to be revisited. I’ll be emphasising the point whilst I’m there and as with my recent revelations about how wines under five Euros can easily be found in bodegas (resulting in a concentrated advertising campaign to attract clients away from the supermarkets and back to the bodegas) I expect that changes will be afoot.

 34% of respondents said that they read both the back and front labels of wine bottles before they bought. Presumably the sometimes flamboyant and certainly almost invariably visually attractive front labels attract us in the first place but then for more information we go to the back label. However for me it is quite a shock to learn that 54% only occasionally check the back label. Clearly it is the front label that sells the wine.

 So how does this affect the marketing men and women? Well whilst it is  important to make the bottle stand out it is also clear that all other producers are doing the same. So how can we be convinced to choose one wine over another, when it is apparently only the front label that we are considering?

 It seems to me that more information has to be given on that front label, to better inform the consumer. Wine made from old vines for example is often an advantage as Cork Talk readers will know, because old vines produce fewer grapes but those that do appear are all the richer for it, creating deeply flavoured wines. Usually this information appears on the back label.

 Wine is often matured in oak casks, this can be: semi-crianza (less than 6 months in oak; crianza (at least six months in oak); reserva (at least a year in oak) and Gran Reserva (a couple of years in oak as a minimum plus further bottle-ageing). Also different oaks French, American, Hungarian etc impart different flavours and nuances. Plus there is toasting to consider, how long was the wood kept close to the fire as the cooper crafted his barrica – this too makes a difference to the wine.

 But hang on, whilst we want to advise, we don’t want to bore the client and give too much information! As you can see it’s a marketing nightmare, a dilemma that has to be addressed. Bodegas that want to sell their wines will have to have a look at their label design to see how they can continue to attract the consumer whilst also giving at least some of the information that is on the oft ignored back label!