Lately we’ve been exploring more Portuguese wines, and I even attended an Appellation Alentejo Wine Seminar in Houston. Courtesy of Creative Palate, I was sent five Alentejo wines following the wine seminar to taste and review. It was suggested that I taste the wines side-by-side, as to get a sense of the Alicante Bouschet grape variety, so I called on some friends to help.
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One of those friends is a damn good cook, and he offered to pair the wines with a bold array of tapas and dinner inspired by the region. I love that Cory went overboard with the spread, and we thoroughly enjoyed fruits and nuts, cheeses, bread and cheese crackers, salame, and chocolate. It was truly a pleasure to not only sample the wines, but to pair them with different food flavors.
He also found a lovely palate cleanser, Blanc Lime, a sparkling wine-based beverage that was light and refreshing in between these bold red wine tastes. Between the six of us tasting five wines, we only needed one bottle of the palate cleanser…but between you and me I’d love to have more of that on hand for hot summer days! The alcohol content is 8%, lower than wines, in general.
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The cook’s wife and my dear friend Sarah used her wine journal during the tasting, and got the rest of us blank journals to use, should we do this type of group tasting again (um, yes please!). I had my copy of Wine Folly: The Essential Guide to Wine bookmarked to the Portuguese wine pages for everyone to take a quick look at. And we had wine sheets and Alentejo region sheets from Creative Palate (at the bottom of this post) for our reference as well.
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Cory found a recipe for Portuguese dish, Bacalhau a Gomes de Sa, which is salt cod, onions and potatoes for us to enjoy for dinner after we did the preliminary tasting. The recipe from Food Network is linked here in my Pinterest board, but Cory’s modified recipe (he does what he does!) is below. It was DELICIOUS!!
Bacalhau a Gomes de Sa
6 oz of salted cod (soaked for 24 hours in water changed every few hours)
1 large onion (french cut and cooked until brown)
3 pounds of white potatoes sliced 1/8”
2 cups cream
Spay oil
Put a layer of potatoes on the bottom of the pan. Put one layer of onions next. Put an even layer of all the cod. Put another layer of potatoes on top. Put 2 cups of cream on top. Add salt and pepper. Cook at 400 for 45 minutes.
Served: 6 wine drinkers
So what did we think of the wines? Well, I purposely did not include the prices, as to not force a bias. By the end of the tasting, we all had our favorites, which was widely varied among the six of us, and uninfluenced by price, which was a wide range as well. The majority became new Portuguese wine lovers that night, and all our eyes were opened to the Alicante Bouschet grape as a true superhero. As wine drinkers, we’ll definitely keep our eye out for this grape on the market while ordering wine with dinner or shopping for bottles at our local wine stores. Information on each of these five wines from Creative Palate’s program is below, as well as the sheets provided. I highly recommend all of them!
Mouchão Red 2013, $60
“Mouchão, the home of Alicante Bouschet”. Made only in years of exceptional quality, this is a single-vineyard wine from the Carapetos Vineyard in the Portalegre area. With its spicy, dark fruit and eucalyptus notes, the wine is made by owner/winemaker Iain Reynolds Richardson, an Alentejano through and through (think port and its English names). Grapes are still foot-trodden, twice daily, in stone tanks. The wine is aged in large wooden vats made from an unusual combination: Portuguese oak, mahogany and macacaúba (a Brazilian hardwood).
Dona Maria Grande Reserva 2012, $45
From an estate that belonged to an 18th century king and where grapes are still foot-trodden. Today, it is home to one of Portugal’s oldest Alicante Bouschet vineyards, and is owned by winemaker Julio Bastos, a leading pioneer of the Alentejan vinous renaissance.Made from a blend of varieties, the wine is 50% Alicante Bouschet, with Petit Verdot, Syrah and Touriga Nacional.
Herdade dos Grous Moon Harvested 2017, $25
This Alberrnoa-based estate is a perfect example of the questing, always seeking-to-improve spirit of Alentejo, taking advantage of both mainstream and more alternative techniques. Grapes are hand-picked when the moon exerts the greatest pull on the life-giving sap. Blending tradition with modernity, fermentation starts in traditional lagares, but concludes in French oak barrels.
Rocim Alicante Bouschet 2016, $20
The estate is located in Southern Alentejo which, counterintuitively, enjoys one of the most temperate micro-climates in the region, thanks to the Vidigueira Fault. Cool air from the nearby Algarve coast comes down the escarpment’s slopes. Grapes thrive on the terraces’ infertile volcanic soils of granite and schist, yielding wines with a lovely mineral note. Fruit here is foot-trodden in stone, open fermenters. The final wine offers minerally, spicy black fruit, and is sleek and fresh
Esporão Vinha das Palmeiras Alicante Bouschet 2013, $45
One of Portugal’s largest and best-known estates, Esporão is family-owned and its winemaking head is Australian, David Baverstock. This single-vineyard-wine, made only in the best years, is a perfect example of Esporão – honoring traditional methods while using new technology and empirical research to refine what is there. The 2013 vintage: a rainy spring, followed by hot summer days and chilly evenings resulted in optimum fruit ripeness. More than with most other grapes, ripeness is vital because of Alicante Bouschet’s intense tannic structure.
[Recipe: Brigadeiro (Brazilian Fudge Balls)]
Everything was wonderful, and I appreciate Creative Palate for sending over these delicious samples, and to our friends Cory and Sarah for cooking and hosting our little Portuguese inspired food and Alentejo red wine pairing. We drank wine into the night and talked about visiting Portugal one day, the six of us. As an every day wine lover and habitual traveler, I have and promote an extreme appreciation for wine tourism. Each sip invokes a sense of place, an appreciation for climate, soil geology, geography, and cultural setting. If drinking wine doesn’t make you want to visit the place it comes from, or at least learn about it, it should. Portugal…we can’t wait to meet you!
For more information on Wines of Alentejo and to explore the region, visit their website here.
Technical Sheets and Fun Facts courtesy of Creative Palate Communications and Wines of Alentejo
Regional Overview: Alentejo brochure-regional overview.pdf
Fun Facts: Fun facts Alentejo.pdf
Grapes: Grapes Alentejo.pdf
Soil: Soil Alentejo.pdf
And my favorite…
Tourism: Tourism Alentejo.pdf