#Portugal

Dec 8, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Quinta do Noval Late Bottled Vintage Port 2016, Portugal

£19.95–£26.75, Master of Malt, Cheers, Cambridge Wine Merchants, Ocado, Bon Coeur Fine Wines, Oddbins Never mind saving this until Christmas, I can't think of a more comforting wine in this cold weather. Late bottled vintage ports simply don't come better than this. Sit by the fire or wrap yourself in a blanket (or both) and soak up its rich embrace of blackberry, fig and black cherry, dark chocolate and mocha, Christmas-pudding spice and velvet-smooth tannins. Like Quinta do

Jul 14, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Quinta do Mouro Zagalos Reserva 2017, Alentejano, Portugal

£20, The Wine Society In view of the weather, I almost changed to a white wine this week, the intense, fragrant, beautifully chiselled old-vine Vinho Verde Soalheiro Primeiras Vinhas Alvarinho 2020 (see below), but I was drawn back to the red Zagalos Reserva because, although it's undeniably full-bodied, freshness courses through the rich redcurrant and black fruit, the green herb and graphite notes and the tannins are effortlessly smooth – so much so, that it works well drun

Aug 26, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Rui Madeira Beyra Rosé 2020, Beira Interior, Portugal

£9.95, The Wine Society In the second of my two summer rosé roundups, I applauded the more interesting textures making rosés ever more versatile wines at the table. This Portuguese star is exactly the kind of wine I was talking about. It draws you in with lightly floral cherry and raspberry aromas, then delivers the same breezy fruit on the palate with almost chewable, textured roundness and dry, salty, mineral length. Really delicious. It's made from Tinta Roriz (aka Tempran

Aug 12, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Cedro do Noval Tinto 2018, Vinho Regional Duriense, Portugal

£19.99, Cellar Door Wines, Cambridge Wine Merchants, Street Wines; £69 for 6 en primeur, Tanners Wines An inviting, approachable but cellar-worthy Portuguese red from the team at the Quinta do Noval port estate in an excellent vintage. Generous, perfumed and fruity with floral notes, dark cherry, damson and a touch of liquorice carried by soft, cedar and sandalwood spice, sleek tannins and the energising, mineral lick of wet rocks that is so characteristic of wines, both red

Aug 11, 2021

Prime Time for Pink: Summer 2021 Rosé Roundup Part 2

As in part one, there's a cross-section of styles, grape varieties, origins and prices here and I'm going from high to low again, so that the more expensive rosés don't get overlooked (scroll down for the £8.25 Spanish rosado). There are some food suggestions along the way, but there isn't a wine here that couldn't be taken to the table, thanks largely to the more interesting textures we're seeing in so many rosés. Finally, a reminder that if you want a comprehensive review o

Feb 20, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Altano Organic Douro 2017, Portugal

£10.50–£11.80, Booths, Waitrose, Davy's Wine, Tanners Wine, The Wine Shop (Knaresborough) I'd like to think that my venture into mouthwatering dry Riesling for last week's wine lifted the putative winter gloom. It certainly did nothing to improve the weather, so this week I'm back with a full-on winter red, although that doesn't mean it's not suitable for summer. It's an excellent barbecue red, but it's a bit cruel to mention summer and barbecues in current conditions. Altano

Mar 21, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Casa Da Passarella Somontes Branco 2017, Serra da Estrela, Dão, Portugal

£11.95, Davy's Portugal isn't as known for its dry white wines, other than Vinho Verde, as it deserves to be. Dão is certainly much more familiar for its reds, but this branco is exactly what I like about Portuguese whites: medium-full and quite succulent with a lip-smacking, almost bracing salty mineral character, juicy lime and herb flavours and a hint of spicy white pepper. The grape varieties are Encruzado, Malvasia and Verdelho and part of the key to the wine's quality a

Aug 23, 2018

WINE OF THE WEEK: Tanners Super Douro Reserva 2015, Douro, Portugal

£14.50, Tanners Wines It was a hard choice: Tanners Côtes du Rhône, an absolute charmer from the very good 2016 vintage, or this Douro red. In the end I settled on the dark, full-bodied, oak-matured Reserva, partly because it went irresistibly well with a magret de canard and Pyrenees sheep's cheese that I was eating. It's made by Duorum Vinhos with input from Tanners, using classic port grapes led by Touriga Nacional, and is aged in French oak, which gives depth and toasty e

Aug 10, 2017

WINE OF THE WEEK: Altano Douro Branco 2016, Douro, Portugal

£8.50, The Wine Society I’ve been following this delicious unoaked white from the outset and each vintage more than lives up to its predecessor, the 2016 combining candied citrus fruit and grapefruit zest with the Douro’s characteristic smoky, stony, mineral flavour. It's a blend of local varieties, including Malvasia Fina and Moscatel Galego, from vineyards high up in the Douro Valley belonging to the Symingtons, a remarkable family who own 26 individual wine estates and Gra

May 9, 2017

Weird and wonderful grape varieties

“Some of the wines are available in the UK; others are so rare it is unlikely that you will be able to find much literature on them,” said the email from an MW. I’d have gone a long way and spent hours in a cold, damp cellar to taste the wines made from these grape varieties, but I didn’t have to. They were going to be served at a six-course dinner in the private dining room of Gordon Ramsay’s Savoy Grill. It was not an invitation to turn down. So I didn’t. Nor did the Presid

Oct 29, 2016

Is co-fermentation the new black for Port?

Co-fermenting – fermenting different grape varieties together happened by default in the past It was a while since I’d been in the Douro when I went last month. The last time I was on a port mission it was to research the ageing and blending of Tawny ports, so I spent some time investigating casks of slumbering Tawny in the lodges in Oporto and spent even more time ensconced in a plain white tasting room with three blenders and hundreds of samples of Tawny port. On the recent

Jun 16, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: F'Oz Dão 2013, Portugal

£9.99, Laithwaites I was going to recommend this velvety Portuguese red a while back but it was out of stock everywhere. It’s now available again and every bit as good as it was, and Laithwaites has a next-day delivery option (£8.99 – only £1 more than their standard delivery charge) should you need it for Fathers’ Day or a weekend barbecue. People are sometimes surprised to hear that Portuguese wines are some of the best value around, but it’s because there’s a wonderful arr

Dec 24, 2015

WINE OF THE WEEK: Graham's 10 Year Old Tawny Port

£16 (on offer), Sainsbury's Waitrose, Ocado, £19, Oddbins This is a bottle to pick up if you’re still rushing around buying last-minute presents, or if you want a port for cheese that doesn’t need decanting, or if you want something to serve with mince pies, chocolate, or dried fruit and nuts. In a stylish, clear glass, dumpy bottle to show off its colour, it’s a rich, luscious Tawny with flavours of dried and fresh figs, nuts, toffee and spices. To get the full effect, remem

Oct 15, 2015

WINE OF THE WEEK: João Portugal Ramos Vinho Verde Loureiro 2014

£7.99, cellarandkitchen.adnams.co.uk and Adnams stores Hear this: Portuguese wines are some of the most overlooked and underrated and you don’t have to go very far to find them. There are lots of warming, velvety reds around, from Dão, the Douro and Alentejo, but we can’t drink wall-to-wall reds from here until next spring, so here’s a wonderfully zippy white. Light in body but not on flavour, it has a delicately honeyed, citrus and quince taste with a hint of baked apple and