Portuguese Native Wine Grapes and the New Age of Discovery

One of the wonderful things about wine is its ability to surprise and delight — there are always new wines made with unusual wine grapes and from unexpected places to enjoy. A person who is bored with wine, given this great discovery potential, is bored with life!

Portuguese explorers were at the forefront of the “Age of Discovery” that opened the world to economic and cultural exchange. Portugal’s impact on global trade was astonishing considering that it is and was a relatively small country hanging on Europe’s western-most edge.

Now I propose a reverse movement with respect to Portuguese wine and its native grape varieties. The New Age of Discovery, as I call it, calls for wine enthusiasts to take deep dives into Portugal’s many wine regions and especially to explore native wine grape varieties with unfamiliar names but intriguing flavors and unlimited potential.

Discovering Portugal Wine Diversity

Maybe that’s why Italian wines frequently appear on The Wine Economist page (although this is a global wine blog, for example, it was recently named one of the 40 best Italian wine blogs and pages). The wine map of Italy is a colorful mosaic that invites close inspection. But Italy is not alone is this regard. It is time to explore in more depth the diversity that Portugal offers.

Vini Portugal sent us three wines selected to illustrate three sides of Portuguese wine diversity. The Villa Alvor Singular Moscatel-Galego-Roxo 2020, for example, comes from the Algarve region, which is better known for sunny beaches than lush grapevines. The Antonio Maçanita Tinta Carvalha 2020, an Alentejo wine, is made from grape varieties now quite rare, but that once dominated the region. This wine brings them back from near-extinction. Finally, the Esporão Reserva Tinto 2019 is an interesting hybrid from a famous Alentejo producer, blending indigenous grapes with international varieties such as Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. It tells the story of the winery and the region, too.

Unexpected Field Blend

Knowing of our interest in native grape varieties, António Graça, the head of Research and Development at Sogrape Vinhos, arranged for us to receive examples of Casa Ferreirinha Castas Escondidas, a field blend from an old vineyard at Quinta do Seixo in the Douro.

The grape varieties include such unfamiliar names as Touriga-Fêmea, Tinta Francisca, Bastardo and Marufo, which are sometimes included in Port wine blends, but rarely make themselves known in unfortified wines. Tinta Amarela, Tinto Cão, Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa and vinha velha are also part of this unique blend.

Now it would be easy to dismiss a wine like this as a “kitchen sink” product made up of odds and ends, but that is clearly not the case here as you will know immediately when you taste it. It is really true that what grows together often goes together, and the combination of these wine grapes in the talented hands of Sogrape Douro winemaker Luís Sottomayor results in a distinct and delicious statement of terroir. We found the wine to be complex, balanced, and elegant with a finish that went on and on. An experience as much as a wine. Fantastic.

Quiet! Old Vines at Work

António writes that, “We have been surveying our old vineyards and inventoried all varieties present in that vineyard, plant by plant in an effort to identify the patterns of the historical field blend. This wine is the result of the knowledge we gained from that work which we extended now to other old vineyards we own in order to gain knowledge that will assist us in adapting to a warmer climate in an already warm region.”

“This has led us to develop new vines and wines using blends or single variety wines made from minority varieties, some representing less than 50 hectares as total planted acreage today. The revelation of their sensory aspects has been very reassuring. Examples are Touriga Femea (literally «female Touriga»), Tinta Francisca in the Douro, Sercialinho in Bairrada or Encruzado and Alfrocheiro in Dao.”

Portuguese winemakers have a lot of material to work with in this new age of discovery. The official wine grape registry lists 343 native varieties so far — incredible diversity for a relatively small region.

An Age for Discovery

When I first visited Portugal and began tasting wines made from the native grape varieties, I saw the unfamiliar names as an obstacle to their success on the global market. It made sense to me, I wrote, to market the wines under proprietary brands or in blends with familiar international grape varieties in order to avoid erecting another barrier to entry for consumers new to the country’s wines.

But things have changed and my opinion has changed with them. The world is re-discovering Portugal as a place to visit or live along with its history, cuisine, and of course its wine. It is the new Age of Discovery and my, but there is a lot to discover in Portuguese wine.

Wine Book Review: Grassroots Perspectives on Portuguese Wine

March 22, 2022 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, Portuguese wine Leave a comment

Simon J. Woolf and Ryanb Opaz, Foot Trodden, Portugal and the Wines that Time Forgot. Interlink Books, 2021.

Portugal is having a much-deserved moment at present. For a long time Portugal wasn’t really on the radar for most people. The situation was so bad that some folks couldn’t find Portugal on a map — I saw a headline that proclaimed Portugal as a Mediterranean destination! It was enough to make Henry the Navigator cry!

Portugal Discovered

Now Portugal is high on the list of popular destinations for travelers of all stripes. Many of our friends have visited Portugal as tourists, for example, one has bought property there and is moving permanently, and another is seeking Portuguese citizenship.

What is the attraction? The people, their culture, food, wine, climate — the list goes on and on. The question isn’t so much why people love Portugal as what took them so long to discover it!

You can say pretty much the same thing about Portuguese wine. For a long time the wines of Portugal have been sort of filed away a couple of niches. Port and Madeira? Check! Vinho Verde? Check! Lancers and Mateus? Check! Check!

But the world of Portuguese wines beyond the niche categories was essentially uncharted territory. What would it take for get wine drinkers to try Portuguese wines from unfamiliar regions made with unfamiliar grape varieties? It seemed like an impossible challenge.

Portuguese Charm Prevails

But the challenge is being met these days and Portuguese wine sales have been strong in the United States market, due in part to the popularity of Portugal as a travel destination, but also the rising profile of the country and its people more generally. Portugal has become a little bit like Italy in the sense that warm feelings about the place encourage consumers to give the wines a foot in the door, which is all they really need.

Walking into Costco recently, for example, I was met by a giant haystack wine display right by the entrance featuring colorful bottles of wine labeled simply “Portugal Red Blend” from the Lisboa region. It is an honest red wine, not too complicated, and a very good value. Shoppers happily filled their giant shopping carts. Would that have happened five years ago?

Grassroots Portugal

Foot Trodden, the recent book by Simon J. Woolf and Ryan Opaz, comes at an opportune moment when many wine enthusiasts are thirsty to learn more about Portugal. The book is appealing in part because it approaches Portuguese wine from a different angle than many wine books.

The standard format of “Wines of XXX” books is to survey the landscape from the perspective of the grape varieties, the wines they produce, the regions where they are made, and the wineries that make them. It is essentially a top-down approach, which is appropriate for a survey volume. Richard Mayson’s The Wines of Portugal, for example, applies this template to Portugal very successfully.

Foot Trodden breaks the mold a bit by focusing on the people and their stories, letting the other elements appear as part of the human tale. This is a bottom=-up perspective, which I find especially appropriate in this case because, as I noted above, so many of the sources of Portugal’s current success are essentially grassroots characteristics.

The book is well written, the stories, which mainly focus on family wineries, are well chosen and told, and the result a feeling of the place and the challenges that wine makers faced in the past and confront today, too. Excellent book. It deserves the success and recognition it has received.

All in the Family

Because stories are the driving force here, breadth is sometimes sacrificed for depth. So, for example, we are introduced to far fewer wine makers than in the survey books and these tend to be smaller multi-generation family affairs. The big wine producing houses are mentioned, but the focus is elsewhere.

I especially enjoyed the chapter on the Alentejo, which was organized around the tradition of making wines in large clay pots called Talha. The rise, fall, and now rise again of this tradition is very interesting and deftly connects several family wine stories. These wines certainly honor the book’s sub-title.

I was also pleased to see so much Portuguese history woven into the book’s tapestry. It seems to me that it is impossible to understand Portuguese wine today, for example, without taking into account the long shadow case by Prime Minister Salazar’s policies and the reaction to the Carnation Revolution.

The book features many colorful photographs, which support the grassroot perspective by highlighting the families, their land, and work. There are a few missed opportunities. The one map included in the book is pretty, but doesn’t answer many questions. More is more when it comes to maps, especially in this case because they can help connect the top-down and bottom-up perspectives.

Which is the better approach — survey or grassroots? Each is useful and interesting. Why choose? More is more when it comes to perspectives on Portugal and its wine!

Three Faces of Wine Strategy: Porto Perspectives

September 21, 2021 By Mike Veseth in globalization, Portuguese wine, wine, wine markets 5 Comments

If you walk along the river in Vila Nova de Gaia, just across the Douro from beautiful Porto, you are in the right place to visit the famous Port lodges and sample different types and styles of Port wine. If you dig a little deeper, you can also learn something about the diversity of successful wine industry strategies that these historic firms have deployed.

I’m interested in Portuguese wine because it has experienced rising sales here in the US market while some other countries have struggled and lost market share. And I am interested in wine industry strategies because, as I wrote here last week, the global wine market seems to have plateaued and so everyone wants to know the secret to growth in a stagnant market.

Herewith, for your consideration, three case studies inspired by an imaginary Vila Nova de Gaia excursion.

Taylor’s: Tradition and Innovation

Our first stop is Taylor’s, one of the most famous names in Port wine. Fortified wines, including Port wines, are not the easiest products to sell these days, but Taylor Fladgate, which has been in this business since 1692, is committed to Port and Porto. The Fladgate Partnership’s portfolio of Port brads is broad and deep, including Taylor’s, Fonseca, Croft, and Krohn. No unfortified wines are produced. This focus on its traditional business, however, doesn’t rule out innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors.

Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) Port was a Taylor innovation, for example. I have argued that LBV Port helped rescue and revive the Port trade in the 1970s by giving consumers the experience of Vintage Port without the expense and bother. Taylor’s innovation continues today with its canned White Port spritz, Chip Dry & Tonic, a delicious and refreshing addition to the RTD market that may help consumers see Port wine in a new light.

Taylor’s commitment to Port and Porto is also expressed through its investment in the region’s wine tourism industry. First came the fantastic Yeatman Hotel high on the hill overlooking the Douro next door to the Taylor’s Port lodge. The hospitality investment continued with the redevelopment of luxury Hotel Infante Sagres in central Porto and the Vintage House Hotel in the Douro Valley at Pinhão.

That’s really himpressive … but wait, there is more! The the area of warehouses reaching down to the Douro from Taylor’s were developed into Porto’s new wine tourism destination — the incredibly ambitious World of Wine. Sue and I haven’t visited WoW yet, but we look forward to exploring its many varied experiences when we get back on the road again.

Bravo to Adrian Bridge and The Fladgate Partnership for their bold strategy of doubling down on Porto and Port wine.

Symington: Porto and the Douro

If you continue down the pathway along the Douro and up the hillside a few blocks you will come to Graham’s, part of the Symington Family Estates, with its historic Port lodge and destination restaurant, Vinum.

Symington represents a second face of wine industry strategy here in Porto. They are all-in on Port wine, of course, with four famous brands: Graham’s, Dow’s, Warre’s, and Cockburn’s. But Symington’s reach extends beyond Port to Portuguese table wines including Quinta do Vesuvio, Quinta do Ataíde, Quinta da Fonte Souto, Altano, and Prats + Symington, a partnership with Bordeaux’s Bruno Prats. All the wines but one come from the Douro Valley. Quinta da Fonte Souto is in Alto Alentejo, which is Symington’s first foray outside of its home region.

Sue and I recently enjoyed a bottle of P+S Prazo de Roriz, a red wine made from younger Douro Valley vines that harmoniously balances fruit and minerality — a seriously attractive wine that punches above its $20 price point.

Although the Fladgate Partnership and Symington Family Estates have taken different pathways in wine industry strategy, they share a strong commitment to sustainability. Adrian Bridge is a driving force for climate change action in the wine industry and beyond, for example, and Symington is one of the wine world’s most recognized Certified B Corporations.

Sogrape: Portugal Goes Global

As you walked from Taylor’s to Graham’s along the Douro you passed two noteworthy Port lodges that are part of the Sogrape family, Sandeman’s and Porto Ferreira (Offley Port is also a Sogrape brand). Sogrape, Portugal’s largest wine producer, is an important force in Port wines and in wine generally. It is the producer, for example, of Mateus Rosé, which was once the best-selling imported wine in the US market and remains incredibly popular around the world.

Sogrape’s strategy extends across Portugal’s wine regions from the Douro north to Vinho Verde and south to the Dao and Alentejo. Sue and I are fans of the Casa Ferreirinha Douro Valley wines, including especially the Quinta da Leda, which we love to pair with duck rice.

Sogrape’s strategy differs from both the Fladgate Partnership and Symington family models in that, while its base in Porto and Port is strong, its vision extends far beyond the Douro. It is, in fact, a global vision, as Sogrape’s extensive portfolio extends to Spain (including the famous LAN wines among others), Argentina (Finca Flichman), Chile (Chateau Los Boldos) and New Zealand (Framingham).

It may be surprising that a wine company from a relatively small country should have such a global reach, but remember that this is Portugal and globalization is in its DNA. The Portuguese practically invented globalization and their Port wines are a global icons. Sogrape, with its Mateus Rosé history, seems well prepared to ride the global wave.

Three Faces of Wine Strategy

So what are the take-aways from this wine strategy tour of Vila Nova de Gaia? The first is that there is a lot going on in Portuguese wine these days. If you haven’t thought seriously about Portugal and its wine recently, it is time to give it some attention.

The second point is that there are many routes to success in today’s market, something that is true in Portugal and elsewhere, too. A key seems to be to identify a comparative advantage and make the long-term investments needed to realize potential gains. Taylor’s has invested in expanding Port wine’s reach while investing in Porto and the Douro as a destination –leveraging the power of place. Port and Porto are inseparable — expanding the appeal of one necessarily raises the profile of the other.

The Symington family have adopted a strategy that focuses on the vineyards and communities — the social and physical terroir, with wines that reflect the region and investments that promote social welfare.

Finally, Sogrape leverages the local-global nexus, thinking global and acting local in a very Portuguese tradition.

What do these firms have in common besides Port and Porto? Well, they are all three family businesses that think in generational terms. That long-term perspective makes it possible for the sort of strategies we see here to succeed.

Flashback: the Very Model of a Modern Cooperative Winery

July 13, 2021 By Mike Veseth in China wine, cooperatives, Portuguese wine, wine 3 Comments

I’ve been busy working on a revision to my 2011 book Wine Wars and I had one of those deja vu moments. I was reading the chapter on “The China Syndrome,” which includes a report from my friend and former student Matt Ferchen, who was working in China at the time the book was published. Matt attended a wine fair in Beijing sponsored by Portuguese producers and sent me a report of what he found, which I included in Wine Wars. Matt said that he was impressed with the Portuguese wines.

The first wines I tasted, and the ones I ended up liking the best, were from a cooperative called Adega Coop. de Borba. A couple of the wineries were family owned and there was a kind of earthiness to the wines that I really enjoyed. I was especially impressed with the Portuguese whites, which were all very crisp and I think would go very well with spicy Chinese food.

Adega de Borga? Sue and I visited that winery when we were in Alentejo in 2016. I had forgotten that Matt made a point to call it out in his report. It impressed us, too, so much so that I devoted an entire column to our 2016 experience, which I re-print here. Re-discovering Matt’s reference reminded me how surprised we were to discover this excellent example of a modern cooperative winery.

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They say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and I think this applies to wineries, too. We visited Adega de Borba as part of a brief tour of wineries active in the Alentejo vine and wine sustainability program and found ourselves led astray by our first impressions.

Adega de Borba is a cooperative winery founded in 1955 and was a pioneer at the time. All the economic incentives in those days were stacked against wine and in favor of grain production in this part of Portugal in those days. It took some effort and determination to nurture and expand wine production here.

Beyond the First Glance

At first glance the original 12,000 square meter facility was what I expected from a “mid-century modern” winery, but on closer inspection I began to realize that this was both more and different than it seemed. More because the winery is a surprisingly large operation. The 300 members together farm 2000 hectares of vineyards and the winery produces over 15 million bottles a year.

And different because while the winery dates from mid-century, the ideas are not frozen in time. Looking closely, we saw that everything was meticulously clean and well-maintained as it should be but so often is not in the case of “vintage” production facilities.

And the answers to our questions about economic incentives were the right ones, too. Do the members have to sell their grapes to the cooperative, or are they allowed to hold back some (usually the best ones)? No, they must sell to us. How are they paid? By weight, of course, but with substantial adjustments plus and minus based upon objective measures of quality. Are the premiums enough to motivate a movement to quality? Yes, they are very high for the finest grapes.

Adjusting to New Market Realities

The large scale is important because wine in Portugal is low-priced by U.S. standards and price pressure is increasingly intense. Consumers who bought €3 wine (that’s where the mass market is here) before the global financial crisis are spending €2 instead and margins for exports to some markets can be low as well. So efficient production is key as well as quality that will allow sales in the higher-price categories. imagem_rotulo_cortica_reserva_tinto13_pagina

Former Portuguese colonies Angola and Brazil have been the largest export markets for Alentenjo wines in past years, but both are going through difficult times at the moment (especially Angola with its dependence on petroleum export income), so attention is shifting to other markets such as the U.S., Canada, and Switzerland, which demand higher quality, and Russia and China, where low price is a powerful factor.

Adega de Borda has moved in both directions. The Rótulo de Cortiça wines, which are easy to spot because the label is printed on a thin sheet of real cork (cortiça in Portuguese), are a good case in point. The winery sells about a million bottles of this wine each year at the astounding (for Portugal) price of €9 and even more for the reserve bottling.

That €9 price won’t seem like much to my Napa Valley friends, but it is a stunning achievement for this volume of wine in the context of the Portuguese market and is only possible because of the care and attention that goes into every stage of the process.

Uphill / Downhill

But this doesn’t explain how Adega de Borba is able to compete in markets where margins are razor thin and competition from other producers and other wine regions fierce. To understand that we had to walk up a gentle hillside to the biggest surprise of the day, a stunning 140,000 square meter state-of-the-art production and storage facility that was completed in 2011 at a cost of €12 million. A system of underground pipes connects the new winery with the old one down the hill so that the wines can be bottled there.

Everything is big about the new facility from its crushing capacity (1200 metric tons of grapes a day) to the fermentation and storage capabilities. But it is the technical efficiency that it creates that is most impressive since it allows both volume and margin-boosting quality to co-exist.

Thought and Action

I said at the start that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this big modern building might be an exception to that rule because the exterior of the new building gives away something of its high-tech interior. It is blistering hot in this region in the summer, so the building is clad in white ceramic tiles to reflect the sun with horizontal rows of white marble from a nearby quarry that, a bit like radiator fins, provide a certain amount of natural heat control as well. Very cool (pun intended) and not necessarily what you would expect from a wine cooperative.

We came to Adega de Borba because it has embraced the Alentejo region’s sustainability initiative, but it is easy to see that this is part of an overall approach to wine growing and production, with attention to every detail and eyes firmly set on horizon. Cooperatives tend to struggle when they get the incentives wrong, fail to note changing market environments, and hesitate to invest for the future. Adega de Borba shows us how wine cooperatives must think and act to be relevant and successful in today’s markets. It is how all wine enterprises must think and act.

Portuguese Wines in the Age of Discovery

December 15, 2020 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, Portuguese wine, wine, wine markets, wine tourism 3 Comments

A 1971 television advertisement for Mateus Rosé invited viewers to pour themselves a glass of the popular wine and take an imaginary trip to Portugal. I have been wishing that it was as simple as that this pandemic year when travel is general is so difficult and the idea of a trip from the U.S. to Portugal and back seems out of the question.

Discovering WoW

There are more than a few reasons to wish that a Star Trek transporter could beam us down in Porto, for example. The World of Wine (WoW) opened along the Villa Nova de Gaia riverside over the summer and I can’t wait to explore its many venues. Adrian Bridge and his team have transformed a collection of warehouses on the downhill side of the Taylor winery and Yeatman Hotel, creating a labyrinth of exhibits, cafes, restaurants, and shops.

Portuguese ships sailed to the four corners of the world during the great Age of Discovery. Now that world comes to Portugal and especially Porto to learn about wine.

Five “Worlds” or experiences await the visitor who is interested in (1) wine, (2) the history of Porto and the Douro, (3) planet cork, (4) chocolate, and (5) the Bridge collection of drinking implements, which spans 9000 years. I signed up for the email newsletter, since that’s about as close as I will get to Porto in 2020, and each week I receive notice of concerts, programs, and tempting offerings at the nine restaurants, bars, and cafes. I’d leave for WoW and Porto today if I could!

Discovering Richard Mayson’s New Book

If imaginary travel is the only option, then Richard Mayson’s new book, The Wines of Portugal, is an excellent guide. Mayson knows Portugal and its wines like the back of his hand and he generously shares his knowledge.

The book is organized in the conventional way, with chapters on history, the grapes and wines, the main winemaking regions including the islands such as Madeira, plus specialized chapters on Rosé and sparkling wines. Yes, Mateus makes the book as does Lancers, because they really are important elements of Portuguese wine and its history, but if that’s how you think of Portuguese wine you have much to learn.

I found the regional chapters especially interesting and the producer profiles, though necessarily brief, more detailed and revealing than in many other “Wines of … ” books. Mayson’s Wines of Portugal is highly recommended for detailed study or a wine travel (imaginary or real) reference.

If We Can’t Go to the Wines …

If we can’t go to the wine country, then the thirst for discovery means that it will have to come to us, even though something is lost in trading places this way. We have been fortunate to be able to sample some very interesting Portuguese wines in recent weeks.

Bartholomew Broadbent has imported a bright, refreshing, and very popular Vinho Verde for a number of years (alongside his famous Port and Madeira wines) and he has recently added three new wines to the stable: Broadbent Douro Red, Broadbent Douro Reserve, and Broadbent Dao white wine. The wines are delicious, fairly-priced, in relatively wide distribution, and recommended with enthusiasm.

Portuguese wines are having a moment of discovery just now. Some consumers have never thought of them before or associate them with their parent’s Lancers and Mateus experiences. Others think inexpensive Vinho Verde or stuffy Vintage Port. But (as Mayson’s book explains, of course) there is a world of wine in Portugal’s right borders.

The new Broadbent wines are a great way to learn more about the intriguing red wines of the Douro and the bright whites of the Dao region.

Thanksgiving Discoveries

Thanksgiving was our excuse to sample four wines from the Douro that we received as gifts from friends in Porto. A bottle of stunning Casa Ferreirinha Quinta da Leda was perfectly paired with our festive meal. Elegant and sophisticated. We are looking forward to see how this wine develops over the next few years. It shows what the Douro is capable of at its best.

The final act was an opportunity we’d never had before — to taste cask samples of the new 2018 Vintage Port wines. Winemaker Luis Sotomayor sent us small bottles of his Offley, Sandeman, and Ferreira wines, which we tasted along with chocolate Sue bought in Porto specifically to pair with Port wine.

Yes, I know, Vintage Ports are supposed to be put down for 10 or 20 years before you carefully pull the cork. But that’s not the only time to drink them. Very young Vintage Ports have a charm of their own — a dark intensity that can be quite stunning. You really should try it especially, like me, if sometimes you just can’t wait!

The three wines showed distinct personalities immediately and they changed and developed over several nights. Sue found her favorite of the three shifted as the wines unfolded. An experience I hope to repeat!

Age of Discovery

As you can tell there is a lot to discover about Portugal and its wines and this just scratches the surface. With Mayson’s book and our Porto friends as our guides we plan to continue exploring Portugal’s wine treasure map.

We are not alone in our interest in Portugal and its wines. The most recent Nielsen data published in Wine Business Monthly, for example, shows surging sales through the measured retail channels. Portuguese wine sales measured by dollar value increased by 13.9 percent in the 52 weeks to 10/03/2020 and by an incredible 35.1% in the month of September.

Fingers crossed that travel and tourism will return to some sort of normal sometime in 2021 so that we can go back to Porto to visit the World of Wine and continue our exploration of Portugal and its wonderful wines.

Old Wine in New Bottles? What’s New for Porto and the Douro Wines

December 6, 2016 By Mike Veseth in Portuguese wine, wine, wine markets 1 Comment

As I noted in last week’s column, the Association of Port Wine Companies roadshow passed through Seattle recently and Sue and I were fortunate to be invited to attend the Porto and Douro Wines Tasting.

Expect the Unexpected

Events like this are always appealing because they represent a chance to see old friends and taste familiar wines. But the real attraction is the opportunity to find something new. Portuguese wines never disappoint!

In fact, when I think about it, all my recent experiences with wines from Portugal have included surprises, some of which I have written about here. Portuguese white wines, for example, were a surprising discovery during our visit to the Douro and Alentejo regions earlier this year.

Here in the U.S. consumers think Portuguese whites in terms of Vinho Verde and while these wines can be delightful, we found a world of white blends made using indigenous grapes that really took our breath away. Expect the unexpected, that’s Portuguese wine, and that’s how we prepared for the tasting.

Sandeman: Old Wine in New Bottles

The first big surprise was at the Sogrape table, where George Sandeman was pouring 10, 20, 30 and 40-year old Sandeman Tawny Port (as well as other nice Ports and great red and white Douro wines). The wines weren’t the surprise — it was the bottle.

The traditional Port wine bottle is black, but these bottles were clear and let the color of the wine shine come through. The idea, according to an article in Drinks Business, is to change the perception of these wines, especially in on-trade.

Port is often stuck in a rut as a wine that you drink at the end of a meal and at Christmas, but the wines are really much more versatile than that. These clear bottles (with their elegant Vinilok closures) invite consumers and bartenders to also think of Port as a brown spirit that has many uses, including cocktails and aperitifs.

The new design does change the look of Sandeman Tawny Port and the image, too. I wonder if it will have its desired effect or if the potential consumer of a 40-year old wine, for example, might not really prefer the traditional package?

It would be a mistake to dismiss this redesign too quickly. Image isn’t everything, but it is something and if you want people to think about Port differently it doesn’t hurt to change its look.

Remember that the great success of the Sandeman wine brand is due both to the quality of the Port and Sherry wines and also to the effectiveness of its advertising. “The Don” (with the Spanish hat and Portuguese student cape) is one of the most powerful images in wine and maybe in advertising generally. New bottles for old wine? I will be interested to see what happens.

Old Wine in Old Bottles

Another surprise was in store as we looked for new types of Port to taste. White Port was one of our discoveries this year and we spent the summer introducing our friends to White Port spritz (equal parts dry white Port and tonic), which is a great alternative to the ubiquitous Aperol spritz.

I noticed that C.Da Silva was pouring older white Ports and I asked to try a bit, but nearly changed my mind when I saw the deep color of the 1971 vintage wine. It looked like a Tawny Port to me. But these old whites are aged in barrel like Tawnies and take on the dark color.

We tasted through the decades, back to that 1971, and the wines were just fascinating — familiar and different at the same time. Memorable!

We moved on to the Sogevinus table, where we tasted Kopke’s line of White Ports with 10, 20, 30 and 40 years of age. These old wines were packed in the traditional stenciled bottles. Old wine in old bottles. I found them really interesting, although Sue was drawn more to other styles, especially the Vintage and LBV Port wines.

We sat at with the group from the Rozés Port house at dinner and enjoyed their fine Terras do Grifo white and red Douro wines, which we had not had an opportunity to try before.

Portuguese Wines on the Rise

Portugal may be a small country, as we were often told, but it is big in terms of the diversity of its wines. Always something new and exciting to discover. And it is clear that U.S. consumers are discovering them. Port wine sales are on the rise, due in part to more creative marketing efforts that, as Paul Symington notes, are necessary to bring Port out of the “dinosaur age” in terms of the who, what, when, where and how of its consumption.

Portuguese wine sales in general are booming. The most recent Nielsen data (published in the December 2016 Wine Business Monthly) indicate that Portuguese wines sales have increased by 13.8 percent in the most recent year. That growth rate ranks behind only France (15.7%) and New Zealand (15.5%) among imports, although Portugal starts from a much lower base. Outstanding!

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Thanks to the Association of Port Wine Companies (AEVP) for inviting us to the Seattle tasting and dinner. Best wishes for continued success!

Wine Tourism in Portugal: Expect the Unexpected

June 21, 2016 By Mike Veseth in Portuguese wine, wine, wine tourism 1 Comment

“A World of Difference” is the official motto of Wines of Portugal and it is a good one, too, since Portugal features so many indigenous grapes and distinctive wine styles. Sometimes it feels like a world of its own waiting to be explored.

But I think an even better motto would be “Expect the Unexpected.” Or at least that is the theme that I will use in this column to tie together four recent encounters with Portuguese wine.

Sala Ogival: Wines of Portugal Tasting Room

It was a beautiful day when Sue and I arrived in Lisbon so we decided to shake off the jet lag by taking a stroll to the Praça do Commércio, the beautiful main square down by the river. We weren’t surprised to see the tourists and families or the many restaurants and cafes with outdoor tables.

But we were surprised to see a “Vini Portugal” (Wines of Portugal) sign on one side of the square. There, inside the Sala Ogival, we found a very impressive tasting room facility that invited visitors to learn about all of Portugal’s wine regions and taste some of the wines.

Various moderated theme tastings were available for modest fees, but a popular option was to put a few euro on a pre-paid card and get small tastes from the wine dispenser machines that were strategically located around the room near information displays for the appropriate regions.

The long central tables were crowded with couples and groups exchanging tastes and conversation. What a great way to draw Lisbon tourists into Portuguese wines and to educate them about regional geography. I understand there is a similar tasting room in Porto. Great way for a national wine organization to leverage a prime tourist location to promote its wine industry.

Castelo de Sâo Jorge: Wine with a View

You can see the Castelo de Sâo Jorge from pretty much everywhere in Lisbon and, high on the hill, you can see all of Lisbon from the castle. Beautiful weather, beautiful view. All that you need to make it complete is a glass of great wine to sip and enjoy.

So how convenient was it for us to discover the small mobile wine-tasting cart of Wine with a View!

Wine with a View provides visitors with a choice of about a dozen Portuguese wines served in the first give-away plastic glasses I have seen that are not a joke. Red, white, sparkling, Port, and even the local liqueur Ginjinha — buy a glass from the friendly and informative staff and relax and enjoy the view. How civilized!

The wines are supplied by Bacalhôa, which has vineyards and wineries throughout Portugal and is able to represent the country well. I chose the Quinta do Bacalhôa white, made from grapes at the estate vineyard in Setúbal (we visited the palace there the day before). It was great, but I found it hard to resist the Moscatel du Setúbal, which is one of my favorite Portuguese wines.

Wine with a View hopes to expand to other locations. Wouldn’t it be great if every place with a view had wine available to encourage you to relax and enjoy the moment?

Mateus Palace: Hidden Winery
We took only two “tourist days” on our Portuguese trip: one to visit the castle in Lisbon and explore the city and another in the Douro to visit the historic Casa Mateus and have lunch at DOC, chef Rui Paula’s wonderful riverside restaurant. I knew there would be interesting wine at DOC, but I didn’t expect to find a wine experience at the palace.

The name Mateus is famous in wine, of course, because of Mateus Rosé, which is made by Sogrape and sold around the world. At one time Mateus Rosé was the best-selling imported wine in the United States and it is making a comeback in many markets as both Portuguese wines and Rosé wines have gained traction.

I did not expect to find either wine or grapes at the Mateus Palace. The palace is beautiful and full of history and the grounds and gardens are spectacular — no wonder it is such a popular tourist destination. Out past the formal garden, however, was an orchard and then a large and well-tended vineyard. I guess there are grapes at Mateus. But wine?

I literally stumbled upon the winery and tasting room while trying to find my way back to the car. There, in a long side building, was a tasting room for Lavradores de Feitoria, an association of growers and producers from throughout the region. The Mateus vineyards and the wines made from them are part of this association.

The wines we tasted were very interesting and the Lavradores de Feitoria Rosé was refreshing, as it should be on the warm day. The LBV Porto from Quinta da Costa das Aguaneiras was impressive.

We were invited to enter an ancient door just down the way and we found ourselves in a winery filled with vintage equipment. With the historic palace just ten yards away, this atmospheric room felt like a museum and gave us a tangible sense of the history of wine in this place. A totally unexpected treat.

Seattle: Unexpected Delights

As luck would have it, a Wines of Portugal trade roadshow rolled into Seattle about a month after we returned from my speaking trip to Portugal. We were delighted to be invited to attend and even happier with the Master Class that Evan Goldstein and Eugènio Jardim presented.

At the trade tasting that followed we revisited wines that we had just come to know in Portugal and tried to deepen our knowledge. The white wines really impressed us and the tasting let us experience different representations of grapes and styles that had only recently entered our vocabulary.

You always smile when you come across something unexpected in a situation like this, and it happened when Eugénio poured us a glass of a sparkling red wine — a sparkling Baga from the Bairrada region, where it is the traditional wine to have with roast suckling pig. The wine was a delight and I could imagine how well it would cut through and enhance the juicy pig. Love at first taste.

Portugal and Portuguese wines are both full of surprises. Expect the unexpected, that’s what I say.

The Three Ages of Wine Cork Production: A Visit to Corticeira Amorim

June 14, 2016 By Mike Veseth in cork vs screwcap, globalization, Portuguese wine, sustainability, wine Leave a comment

It is impossible to drive through the Alentejo region of Portugal without seeing the dark trees that dot the landscape. Pretty soon you notice the lines on the trunks where the bark has been harvested and then you know for sure that you are in a cork oak (Quercus suber) forest, the densest concentration of these trees in the world (see map above).

Cork’s Medieval Roots

Planting a cork oak tree is a statement of faith in the future. The first harvest must wait for 15 years and then the cork will be of low quality, unsuitable for natural cork closures. The second and better harvest that yields more usable cork comes 9 years later. Only 9 years after that (and every 9 years into the future) can the highest quality cork be taken. Few other things in the world of wine (producing 40-year old Tawny Port, for example) can compare to cork in terms of optimistic forward thinking.

Sue and I visited both Porto and Alentejo during our recent trip to Portugal and Antonio Amorim and Carlos de Jesus of Corticeira Amorim, the world leader in cork closures, invited us to visit their factories in these two regions to see first-hand what I am calling the Three Ages of cork.

Cork is an ancient product — the Greeks, Egyptians and Romans all sealed their wine jars with cork. The harvesting of it is laborious hand work since each tree has its own configuration. Photos of modern cork harvests could easily be mistaken for medieval paintings. Cork1

Industrial Revolution

Stepping into the Amorim factory in Coruche, you get an initial sense of moving forward in time to the industrial revolution. There is still a lot of hand work here. Sorting the processed cork bark pieces, for example, still requires human judgement as they are inspected and graded for quality one at a time. The key to making a profit in cork is to waste nothing, so each cork piece must go to its best use and the waste at each step recycled into a lower-priced product.

Almost nothing is thrown away. One item that was headed for the power-supplying waste burner was a piece of cork that was badly infected with TCA, the source of cork taint. What a horrible smell! Until a machine can consistently detect all the potential problems with cork including TCA, cracking, insect damage and so on, these workers’ jobs are very secure.

The factory was loud with the clamber of industrial machinery as every task that could be mechanized was mechanized. It gave me a sense of what those 19th century British textile mills must have been like.

Interestingly, the finest corks closures made from the best quality raw material are hand-punched by skilled craftsmen (see photo above). These corks need to be as close to perfect as possible and so far nothing can replace the human eye for seeing just where the cork’s sweet spot is (and what parts should be recycled down the line for other products).

NDtech: Cork for the 21st Century

It would be easy to think of cork just this way — a medieval product made using industrial revolution technology — but this viewpoint misses a lot as we learned when we visited Amorim’s second factory near Porto.

Here we saw many of the same processes as in the south, but the focus was different because Carlos and Antonio wanted us to see the progress that has been made at improving cork closures and addressing the issues that allowed synthetic stoppers and screw cap technology to make dramatic inroads in this market.

Innovative new production processes and seriously obsessive attention to detail have now all but eliminated the incidence of detectable TCA contamination in Amorim corks throughout the product line, which is a big deal and came only after intense and expensive research and process innovation. But that was not good enough and so earlier this year Amorim unveiled its latest innovation, NDtech corks.

Amorim scientists guided us into the controlled environment that you see in the video above and we saw the NDtech (think non-detectible TCA levels) process at work. ndTech really does individually-inspect each and every cork that goes through the process and guarantees then all to be TCA-free at human sensory threshold levels.

Amorim is convinced that the process works and we saw persuasive data about these and other Amorim cork closures. Now the challenge is to scale up to meet the demand for these, the very best corks that can be made.

Three Ages in One Product

I find it interesting that cork is so many things at once. It is a natural product, of course, but one that is necessarily harvested and then processed by hand and manufactured using machines and processes from a variety of periods. It is also increasingly a technological product.

Making excellent cork closures is complicated as we saw at the Amorim factories and doing so profitably is even more complicated. We were impressed with the way that every scrap and bit of cork is put to use in closures and other cork products and every ounce of value realized. Environmental and economic sustainability go hand-in-hand.

Meeting the challenge of synthetic and screw-cap closures has not been easy for cork producers, who saw a some of their market share disappear. Hard work, expensive research and technical innovation has turned this around, however, and now many consumers and wineries who moved away from cork in the past are taking a new look.

Someone once accused the economist John Maynard Keynes of expressing a view that was inconsistent with his previous statements.” When the facts change,” Keynes replied, “I change my opinion. What do you do?” The facts about cork — especially the TCA situation — have changed in the past few years. No wonder many people in the industry have revised their views on cork.

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Many thanks to Antonio Amorim and Carlos de Jesus for he opportunity to see the three ages of cork with our own eyes and learn about the scientific progress from the experts. This concludes the short series of past-present-future stories from the Alentejo. Come back next week for a look at some unexpected wine tourism opportunities we found in Portugal.

The Past Meets the Future at Alentejo’s Historic José de Sousa Winery

June 7, 2016 By Mike Veseth in Portuguese wine, wine history 2 Comments

The dynamic intersection of old and new was a theme of our recent visit to Portugal’s Alentejo wine region and there cannot be a better example of it that the work that winemaker Domingos Soares Franco is doing at at José Maria da Fonseca‘s José de Sousa winery. Here is a brief report.

Past & Present

Domingos Soares Franco’s roots in Portuguese wine run very deep. He is the sixth generation of his family to make wine. He is a quiet man, I would say, having met him just once, but also proud of all that he and his family have accomplished at José Maria da Fonseca. And rightly so (see video below).

Domingos is known for the innovations that he has introduced in winemaking here, which reflects the new. His technical training was in California at UC Davis (he was the first Portuguese Davis graduate), so it is no surprise that he brings the modern and experimental to his work here.

But we did not meet him in a high tech facility as you might imagine. Instead he took us into a deep cellar at the José de Sousa winery where we confronted Alentejo’s past and perhaps also its future.

Going Back in Time

The Romans made wine in this region two millenia ago using huge clay jars not unlike the ones shown in the photo above and video below. Incredibly the ancient practice remained alive here over the centuries before fading away in the 20th century as the local wine industry suffered from adverse economic incentives (the Portuguese government promoted grain production over wine).

The reemergence of wine in this region is an important story and as we saw at Adega de Borba, modern technology and innovation have been key to that success. But many of those old 1000 liter clay jars still survive from a century ago and we saw them at several wineries that are experimenting with them to see if the past can provide insights for the future. I am not sure anyone has gone as far as Domingos, however.

We inspected the basement with the largest collection of jars that I saw on this trip and peered into a jar full with wine that Domingos was making based upon an ancient recipe. A layer of olive oil protected the wine from oxygen. It was like a look back into the past!

A Memorable Blend

Then we tasted and that was very interesting, too. Experimenting with both the past and the future, Domingos makes one wine using modern techniques and then another, using identical grapes, in the clay jars. You could sense the family resemblance, but there was a lot that is different, especially aroma and mouthfeel.

We tasted one and then the other and then improvised the blend that Domingos favors: half past, half future. Memorable. Not just a wine but an experience.

If you look closely at the photo you can see the shimmer of olive oil floating on the surface of the clay jar wine. That will be gone when the finished wine is made, Domingos said, but the sense of history will certainly remain.

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This video gives you a sense of the old and new that we experienced in Portugal.

Flashback Friday: Cracking the Chinese Wine Market

June 3, 2016 By Mike Veseth in China wine, Flashback Friday, Portuguese wine Leave a comment

The news from my friends in Portugal is that exports to China are rising, which reminds me of the first time I wrote about Portuguese wine in China back in 2010. Here is a Flashback Friday reprise of that column.

Portuguese Wines in Beijing

President Obama wants to double U.S. exports within five years. With this in mind he recently sent Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to Hong Kong to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Cooperation in Wine-Related Businesses. The press release says that

The United States is one of the leading wine-producing countries in the world, and American wines have been growing in stature internationally for decades as people around the world have learned what American wine producers and consumers have known for years: American wines are outstanding,” Locke said. “Working with the Hong Kong government, we want to create opportunities to heighten exposure to American wines in Hong Kong and the region. This MOU will help do just that.

“Hong Kong and the region” … I think that would be code for China. Everyone wants to crack the Chinese market, something that is easier said than done. I’ve written about this problem before (see “Wine and the China Syndrome”). Sean, one of our recent graduates, wrote his senior thesis on the challenges and opportunities of exporting Washington wine to China. Sean identified a number of significant political, economic and cultural barriers that American wine exporters must overcome. He was optimistic regarding the long term, but very cautious about short term success. (Secretary Locke, you might want to give Sean a call.)

Cracking the Chinese Market

Everyone looks hungrily at China with its growing economy and expanding consumer base. But it is hard to break in. Bulk wine imports are substantial (imported wines get blended with local products and labeled “Chinese wine”), but at unsustainably low prices. No future there.

France and Spain have had better luck. The French have been able to leverage their reputation and the prestige of their finest producers to carve out a attractive niche markets for Bordeaux and Champagne as luxury products.

The Spanish achieved success through old fashioned hard work. They have partnered with Chinese wine producers in both production and distribution. If Chinese wines are improving in quality (and I understand they are) then this is at least in part due to technical improvements facilitated by joint ventures.

Miguel Torres has been particularly active in partnerships and ventures of all sorts. You might be interested in their everwines project, which was recently launched in an attempt to develop a western style Chinese wine culture. If you check out the site be sure to click on the Online Shopping link to purchase a variety of international wines in the $20 range and also Opus One for about $550 and a first growth Bordeaux for more than $1200.

Any Port in a Storm

The U.S. is obviously not the only wine producing country with China on its mind and I was pleased to receive an invitation from ViniPortugal to participate in their recent China seminar program and tasting of Portuguese wines. Sixteen winemakers flew from Lisbon to Beijing to present and promote their wines. A good chance to observe this Old World wine country’s China strategy in action.

Beijing is a long way to go for an afternoon tasting, so I was represented by my crack China wine research team, Matt Ferchen (Assistant Professor of International Relations at Tsinghua University) and Steve Burckhalter (who works as a translator for the Chinese public relations firm BlueFocus). Matt and Steve are former students of mine at the University of Puget Sound and keen observers of rapidly changing Chinese markets.

Matt said that he was impressed with the wines he tasted.

The first wines I tasted, and the ones I ended up liking the best, were from a cooperative called Adega Coop. De Borba. A couple of the wineries were family owned and there was a kind of earthiness to the wines that I really enjoyed. I was especially impressed with the Portuguese whites, which were all very crisp and I think would go very well with spicy Chinese food.

I find that most of the wines available in Beijing, both foreign and Chinese, are expensive and mediocre or cheap and bad. Across the board the price to quality ratio was just excellent and I really hope that some of these wineries can find distributors here … [but] …there was only one of the wineries that had any presence in Beijing.

So the product is good and a good value. But that doesn’t necessarily solve the Chinese market puzzle.

Most of the representatives seemed rather disappointed that the turnout at the tasting was quite small and that many of those who were in attendance weren’t in the wine business (i.e. they didn’t see many prospects for finding distributors even if they found possible retail customers). I was asking some of the representatives why Portugal seemed so far behind Spain in terms of entering the Chinese market, especially given what seemed to me the outstanding quality of their product. The answer mostly just seemed to me a question of focus, that somehow the Spanish wine organization was just more aggressive about getting Spanish wines to China and advertising.

Steve also commented on quality and value — and the problem of focus and establishing reputation.

The[seminar] speaker, who I believe was a Chinese man from Macau, noted the long history of wine making in Portugal, the long time presence and popularity in Macau (“We drink this all the time in Macau”), the diversity of wines they are able to grow thanks to the wide range of different climates in Portugal, wines unique to Portugal – such as a “green wine” they grow in the North, which he reasoned would do well in China, being ‘fruity and sweet’ – and finally he also stressed that “Nearly all Portuguese wines are reasonably priced. It’s hard to find any in excess of 2000 RMB.”

He also expounded on why Chinese outside of the Southeast regions don’t care for white wines, which I found interesting. As for the growers and the distributors, there was some diversity to be found in “Brand Portugal”. Interestingly, some were insistent on showing tasters how they straddled both New and Old World wine making (actually, the speaker also touched on this, going on about a vineyard that had invited Australian winemakers to teach them in the ways of new world wine). Others, however, were insistent that they were exclusively Old World – “Portugal is Old World. How can it be New World – that’s not us.”

In response to how they were looking to position their wines, one of the winery reps said that they were looking to focus on promoting, above all, their grapes: the varieties, why they grow so well in Portugal, etc. And their other edge (which I heard from several people) is in pricing, “what you get for X RMB in a Portuguese wine is better than what you get for X RMB in a French wine.” That tended to be the dual answer whenever someone brought up how Chinese people generally went straight for French or Italian wines.

A Wineglass Half Full. Red or White?

Based on Matt and Steve’s reports you can be either an optimist or a pessimist regarding Portuguese wines in China. The upside is that there are many potential advantages, cost being one of them. It is obvious that Portuguese winemakers would like to be seen as a “value” fine wine and avoid the cheap and anonymous bulk wine trap. Good thinking.

But then there is a bit of an identity crisis. Old World or New? Well, both – a harder sell. Focus on regions or grapes (or both)? That requires a substantial sustained education program.

Even the most basic question is problematic: red or white? Westerners know that crisp whites like Vinho Verde taste great with Asian foods – great to westerners, anyway. But, as has often been said, the first duty of wine in Asia is to be red.

I’m cautiously optimistic about Portuguese wines in China, especially if they can settle on the right focus and sustain the education/marketing efforts. But they have a long way to go. Steve reports that “I noticed at a store (targeting Western tastes) last night the only Portuguese wines (out of hundreds and hundreds) were four Ports. Haven’t been to Carrefour in a while, but I bet it’s the same deal.”

Good luck to Portugal – and to American winemakers, too, of course. China is a key market for the future. But scaling the Great Wall is a real challenge and many will fail in the attempt.