portugal revisited
Portugal is the dark horse of the wine world. No country at first sight seems more old-fashioned in its winemaking, yet none offers such contrasts of flavour - remember this is the home of both rich, powerful port and tart, incisive Vinho Verde.
Portugal is the world's seventh largest wine producer, its one million acres of vineyards covering the 300-odd miles from the Minho river in the north to the Algarve beaches in the south. You are unlikely to find squeaky clean international flavours or much use made of Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay; the Portuguese stay faithful to their grapes. In the past, these gave rustic, often oxidised, tastes but Portugal's entry into the EC has raised standards.
One company that has brought fine Portugese wines to the notice of the outside world is Sogrape, best known as the creator of Mateus Rosé.
The pink wine in the squat flagon is still a big profit-maker for the company in 125 countries, but Sogrape has wisely diversified into the production of excellent table wines from the Vinho Verde, Bairrada, D‹o and Douro regions.
Vinho Verde is the searingly acidic "green wine" from Portugal's largest wine region, the north-west of the country. The red is strictly for masochists: it is very acidic, rather like drinking razor blades. White Vinho Verde is bone dry, though the cheaper wines are often sweetened to hide this.
estate wine
Pay a bit more for a single estate wine made from the good-quality Loureiro grape. Sogrape's 1993 Quinta de Azevedo is a revelation and a delicious aperitif: aromatic and well balanced, but with a brisk, sappy flavour that could only be Portuguese. It costs £4.99 a bottle, including VAT (before discounts), from Grape Ideas (071-328 7317 or 0865 722139).
Bairrada, to the south of Oporto, probably produces Portugal's most user-friendly wines from the Baga grape. The reds have plenty of colour and a blackberry fruitiness. Luis Pato and Caves Sao Joao are producers to look out for and Sogrape's 1990 Terra Franca Bairrada Garrafeira (£4.99 from Grape Ideas) is highly recommended: to the eye a deep opaque ruby, for the nose all the spices of the Orient, and in the mouth a fat, generous flavour that calls for a fine partridge.
Its white stablemate, the 1993 Quinta de Pedralvites, made from the primary fruit-flavoured Maria Gomes grape, will be available soon in Safeway for about the same price.
D‹o, surrounded by remote mountains in the centre of Portugal, had a reputation for producing the best Portuguese reds. Until very recently that wasn't really justified as the local co-operatives had a stranglehold on production and turned out a lot of astringent, fruitlesswines.
D‹o revival
Sogrape has been a prime mover in revitalising D‹o's reputation with a new £6m winery at Quinta dos Carvailhais, built to the specifications of winemaker Jose Maria Soares Franco.
Everything here is done to preserve the natural fruit of the red wines and avoid those astringent tannic flavours that made old-style D‹o so difficult to export.
The 1992 Duque de Viseu Red (£4.99) is packed with mulberry fruit tinged with just the right touch of vanilla, which comes from a restricted use of new oak. The white, though nicely made, is just another good white in the £5 bracket.
In the higher reaches of the Douro, Sogrape subsidiary Ferreira Port controls Portugal's greatest red wine, Barca Velha. Released in exceptional years only, this can be as impressive as its Spanish rival, Vega Sicilia.
