Archive | Portugal Links RSS feed for this section
February Wines of the Month: Clos Clare Watervale Riesling 2011 & Filipa Pato Nossa Calcario Branco 2010
There’s a common thread between my February Wines of the Month. Both are made by producers from famous winemaking stock. Clos Clare is made by Sam, Tom and Olivia Barry whose dad is Peter Barry of Jim Barry (their grandfather), while Filipa Pato is Luis Pato’s daughter. Here are my notes on the wines: Clos [...]
Continue reading...Celebrating International Port Day with some new releases & fair maidens
Posted Friday 27th January 2012
It’s International Port Day today (click here for details). Ironically, I’m in the throes of packing my bags for the International Cool Climate Conference in Tasmania! But I didn’t want the day to pass without a word on Port, a unique wine style from one of the most exciting wine regions in the world, the Douro, [...]
Continue reading...Nick Dobson clearance at massive discounts: includes top Portuguese wines & the UK’s widest range of Swiss wines
Posted Thursday 26th January 2012
I was really sorry to receive a press release this morning about the closure of Nick Dobson Wines due to ill-health. Nick is a member of the Association of Small Direct Wine Merchants and a great example of what the independent trade do so well, selling otherwise hard to come by wines, including wines from [...]
Continue reading...Filipa Pato: 10 years of experiments, time to go 100% Bairrada
Posted Wednesday 25th January 2012
Filipa Pato is cut from the same cloth as her father, Luis Pato, Bairrada’s leading winemaker. She’s a restless winemaking soul, all to our benefit, or so I thought until she told me she’d no longer be making Silex! The 2008 vintage was a stand out wine of my selection of 50 Great Portuguese Wines [...]
Continue reading...Ageing very well: New Douro older vintages & maiden wines
Posted Friday 20th January 2012
Wednesday’s New Douro tasting threw up some delightful surprises. Though focused on the latest (red) releases from the 2009 vintage (which I’d already tasted in December), museum stocks had been generously raided, providing an opportunity to taste among the very first New Douro table wines. And they were thrilling, reinforcing what a very prodigious and precocious talent this traditional Port [...]
Continue reading...First taste: Maritávora – very superior Douro Superior wines from Jorge Serôdio Borges
Posted Friday 13th January 2012
Next Wednesday it’s the New Douro trade tasting at the Portuguese Embassy, London. I had a sneak preview in Oporto last month and the standard of the wines was very high – lots to like (click here for my brief report). Subsequently, I headed down to Lisbon for a 3 day generic tasting. Though the Douro wines I tasted there were [...]
Continue reading...January sales heads up: including a couple of my 2011 high fives & rare Madeira
Posted Thursday 12th January 2012
Yesterday Jamie Goode gave the heads up on some rather tasty deals in Noble Green’s January sale. Jamie bought some top Portuguese wines and I snapped up 6 bottles of Clonakilla Hilltops Shiraz 2010 – one of my Top Five Australian Wines of 2011 (click here for my review). It’s reduced from £19.69 to £12.99/bottle. Click here for details [...]
Continue reading...My Top 5 Wines of the Year: Portugal
Posted Friday 30th December 2011
They say that life’s too short to drink bad wine, less still to write about it too! With the exception of lesser vintages in vertical reports, I rate highly every wine which makes its way onto my website, so it’s no easy task to select my top wines of the year. Here’s my top five [...]
Continue reading...J Portugal Ramos: 5 reasons to Reserva the Ramos, including a steal at Majestic
Posted Friday 16th December 2011
This year, the panel I chaired at Decanter World Wine Awards gave a Gold Medal and Regional Trophy to Tagus Creek Shiraz Trincadeira 2010 (see here for my write up). Thrillingly, it went on to scoop the International Trophy for a Red blend under £10, a real coup for Portugal and one of its great modernisers, João Portugal Ramos. [...]
Continue reading...Eat, drink, stay Oporto: some new finds, including veggie heaven/haven
Posted Saturday 3rd December 2011
More often than not, if I’m in Portugal tasting Douro wines, I’ll be based in the Douro Valley. This trip, time wasn’t on my side but the big plus is that I got to see a little more of Oporto (old town pictured) than usual. And I’m more convinced than ever that I should [...]
Continue reading...Lots to like: The New Douro’s 2009 reds & 2010 whites, plus a couple of oldies
Posted Friday 2nd December 2011
I’ve spent this last two days in Vila Nova de Gaia closeted in Niepoort ‘s tasting room (not so very bad), tasting over 100 Douro wines and Ports. Now it’s true Niepoort’s range is big, but not that big (unless you take into account the Projectos ideas rolling around in Dirk Niepoort’s head!) My purpose was to catch [...]
Continue reading...The Yeatman – from hard hats to bowler hats
Posted Wednesday 30th November 2011
As you’d expect from its owners Port shippers The Fladgate Partnership, The Yeatman hotel is a distinctly Anglo-Portuguese venture. It opened in September 2010 and, when I visited in May that year, as you can see (above), hard hats and metal toe cap boots were the order of the day. Last night on arrival, the only hard hat in sight [...]
Continue reading...The Wine Society’s Wines of Portugal tasting: my top tips
Posted Tuesday 29th November 2011
I’m off to Portugal this evening for an intensive series of wine tastings. Last night was well spent getting into the spirit of things at The Wine Society’s second ‘Wines of Portugal’ tasting. Portugal buyer Jo Locke MW and I have three areas of focus in common, Portugal, the Loire & South Africa and I [...]
Continue reading...The Restaurant at The Yeatman: Oporto’s first Michelin Star
Posted Saturday 26th November 2011
Big congratulations to Chef Ricardo Costa and The Fladgate Partnership, owners of The Yeatman hotel. On Thursday night it was announced that The Restaurant at The Yeatman has become one of only twelve Portuguese restaurants awarded Michelin stars in the 2012 edition of Michelin Spain and Portugal. It is also the first restaurant in Oporto to win a Michelin [...]
Continue reading...Post script: everybody’s doing it – Howards Folly Alvarinho 2010 Vinho Verde
Posted Monday 7th November 2011
Just a quick post today, indeed post script, following up on last Monday’s blog (here) about the popularity of Vinho Verde amongst winemakers from other regions of Portugal. I mentioned that it prompted me to stick a bottle of the maiden vintage of Howards Folly Alvarinho 2010 Vinho Verde in the fridge. It has since graced my wine glass on [...]
Continue reading...Life on the Douro – a film by Zev Robinson
Posted Saturday 5th November 2011
Yesterday’s report (here) of the Symington’s remarkable Single Quinta Vintage Port tasting (2006-1950) may have given you a sense of the Douro Valley - the place, the people and, of course, the Ports, but there’s no substitute for seeing the region yourself. And if you can’t go any time soon, the good news is that Zev Robinson’s understated film, Life on [...]
Continue reading...Symington Family Estates: A tasting of Single Quinta Vintage Ports (1950-2006)
Posted Friday 4th November 2011
Despite its showman-style billing as “an opportunity to see the Douro terroir in a way that has not been seen before,” there was not an ounce of puff about this tasting of single quinta wines. Fronted by Paul and Johnny Symington, the line up of Ports from several quintas and eight different vintages, together [...]
Continue reading...Everybody’s doing it: new Vinho Verde finds
Posted Monday 31st October 2011
Never let it be said that I don’t hunt high and low in pursuit of new vinous finds. In Copenhagen, I discovered a new Vinho Verde – a fine match, no doubt, for Denmark’s fish-focused open sandwiches (Smørrebrød), though perhaps not pickled herring! (Pictured lunch at Huset Med Det Grønne Træ, highly recommended). It may [...]
Continue reading...Symington Family Estates Douro 2011 Harvest Report
Posted Wednesday 12th October 2011
Following on from Monday’s 2011 vintage report focused on Portuguese table wines, here’s Symington Family Estates’ Douro vintage report for this year. The family’s illustrious portfolio includes Graham’s, Cockburn’s, Dow’s, Warre’s, Quinta do Vesuvio (pictured) and Altano (table wines). The report’s author, Paul Symington, told me he compiled it on Sunday evening in the Pinhao Valley as he [...]
Continue reading...Portugal: preliminary report, 2011 vintage
Posted Monday 10th October 2011
I’ve recently posted a heap of first hand reports from winemakers about the 2011 vintage in Australia, also Charles & Philippa Sydney’s annual preliminary vintage report on the Loire. Here’s ViniPortugal’s preliminary report on how 2011 is shaping up in Portugal: Overview “Compared to the 2010/2011 harvest Portugal expects a decrease in quantity in the region of 1.2 to [...]
Continue reading...
Posted Wednesday 1st February 2012
0 Comments