Alentejo in the Sun
We're officially now "one of the best wine destinations in the world"
Alentejo is rarely the first place people think of when pondering Portuguese wine, but according to some surprising news – very pleasantly surprising news – that may not be the case for long.
Port always takes the top spot for the famous fortified wines, and its Douro home is also known as a traditional heartland of good Portuguese still wines.
And over the last few years Vinho Verde has been spreading its light, fresh, young and often even slightly sparkling charm around the world.
But Alentejo is one of the biggest producers and has the highest share of Portugal’s domestic wine sales – and that’s quite a lot in a country which consumes more wine per person than anywhere else in the world (45 litres a year).
And according to a “luxury travel brand” Alentejo is now the 12th best wine destination in the world.
It’s the highest ranked in Portugal, ahead of Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru in France and Rioja in Spain.
I couldn’t quite follow the methodology behind the CV Villas report which was based on Vivino statistics...and didn’t understand why Douro wasn’t up there...but I’m not complaining.
Our new passion is banging on about how good – and what good value – Alentejo wines are, so it’s nice to see an international survey agreeing with us.
It was realising this was a new world wine region in an old world wine country which launched our deep dive into the wines of Alentejo.
We’d decided to move here full time and my foreign correspondent reflex was to burrow into the history, geography, culture and language...and having left the BBC, doing all that through wine became a possibility.
And don’t just take it from me, we’ve been speaking to some of Portugal’s top winemakers and they say a similar thing.
In Alentejo “we belong to the old world wine but we are very new,” Luís Duarte told us – one of the first of a new generation of homegrown Portuguese oenologists who runs Grous wines, consults widely and has a family vineyard.
And Australian David Baverstock who made Esporão wines for 30 years (and is now at Ravasqueira and Howard’s Folly) recalls that coming here in the late 1980s reminded him of home.
“When people get to know Portuguese wines, they're going to drink an Alentejo wine,” he said.
“The generalisation is that Alentejo can produce very, very easy drinking commercial style wines in in quite big volumes...but consistency, I think, is the edge.”
You’ll be hearing a lot more from these two winemakers as we start to unveil the Big Portuguese Wine Adventure podcast over the coming months and start to explain what’s so special about Alentejo.
The region’s wine wealth follows a pattern comparable to the whole of Portugal: one of the most important places a few centuries ago and now being rediscovered around the world as an authentic gem.
And there’s a lot of history to delve into. We’ve been visiting some of the best wineries and vineyards in Alentejo for two years now, and it’s a place that’s full of surprises.
Most recently we took up an invitation from the man behind Porta 6 for a tasting day in a little town called Vila Alva.
Porta 6 (pronounced Porta SAY-sh in Portuguese) is one of the most recognisable international Portuguese brands, with its wonderful painted label and great price.
We first came across the red in our local Trader Joe’s when we lived in California and now it’s available in UK supermarkets including Tesco’s.
It’s affordable, very quaffable and produced by Vidigal Wines from a blend of Portuguese grapes including Aragonez (Tinta Roriz), Castelão, and Touriga Nacional from the Lisbon area.
We first met its winemaker Mauro Azóia on November 11th while in Vila de Frades for the opening of the talha Roman amphora wines on St Martin’s Day.
While Vidigal produces millions of litres a year, Mauro makes special editions of a few hundred of his own bottles under the name Artisans’ Terroir...and he loves to experiment.
And it was his new “Lola Loves...” range of wines he was pouring at the inaugural Vinho na Vila festival in Vila Alva in May.
The labels were appropriately artsy and he explained the character of Lola was based on his wife Rita.
One was a Pét-Nat wine which is a softly sparkling, light, lower alcohol wine and was fantastic.
Pétillant Naturel wine (to give it it’s full name) is also known as a the “ancestral method” and was the way champagne was made centuries before the “traditional method” of fermenting it twice was developed.
The wine is bottled slightly before fermentation has finished, so CO2 builds up in the bottle and provides the bubbles.
It’s not filtered so is often slightly cloudy and bang in line with modern tastes for natural wine.
And that was very much the theme of the wine tasting event Vinho na Vila (Wine in the Town): talha wines, natural wines, and small production wines from Alentejo and beyond.
Among them was a fantastic little gang of top winemakers who love their jobs so much they take it home with them, experimenting will all sorts of fun production methods…and making some amazing wines.
Alongside Artisans’ Terroir was Natus Vini, the personal project of Mouchão head winemaker Hamilton Reis. The vineyard is next to the family home, built with a winery in the basement, and he recently won best winemaker and project of the year by the Wine & Stuff blog.
Nearby Vila de Frades claims to be Portugal’s talha capital – it even has an interpretative centre devoted to this trendy style – but wine has been made this way across the whole region since the Romans and is also huge in Vila Alva.
The XXVI Talhas Project whose winery is in the town, organised the event with wine company Enóphilo.
The name comes from their 26 Roman-style amphorae bought when they took over the adega of local legend Mestre Daniel and kept talha winemaking alive.
They have a fantastic range of talha wines which are well worth sniffing out – I’m getting more and more interested in lighter palhete red wines which are a mix of white and red grapes, but their whole range was stunning.
Another great palhete low intervention wine highlight of the day was from the Lisbon-based Espera winery and Rodrigo Martins who’s also a winemaker at Cebolal which specialises in natural wines.
We need to spread our wings soon and take our tastebuds outside the Alentejo...but for now there’s still a big wide world out there and I keep thinking up new episodes for our podcast series.
Watch this space…we’re in talks with partners for support to get it out there with a bang.
Fantastic !!! Because of you two we are home owners in one of the most beautiful places in Europe!
Thank you friend for sharing your story and giving us the we can do it attitude. Changed our lives
Porta 6 - lovely stuff, Al. I confess that I had always thought it was a Lisbon wine! Lovely as it is, any Brit-based would-be buyers/ drinkers would do best to go the Majestic Wines who voted it their number 1 Portuguese red years ago!
Just wanted to invite the wrath of a distinguished journalist too! A ‘fat finger’ might be responsible but in the text there is reference to Brits getting Porta 6 from “Tesco’s.”
I’ve always been a pedant so dare I suggest this really should read Tesco?
We don’t say Waitrose’s or Asda’s ( or shouldn’t) but there, I’ve said it! And it does not detract one iota from the ever readable diary!!
We just commend to you Dez Testoes from Herdade da Maroteira - 30 mins from Evora. Phillip Mollet’s wines have been a top favourite since 2014 when we stayed there!
In friendship
Peter