Hi everyone. I’ve been a lurker on this terrific forum for some time ago, and finally summoned the guts to register. I would like to apologize in advance for the long post!
As a native of Portugal, and the son of a wine journalist who has passed on his passion to me, I’ve starting to get to know my country’s wine reasonably well. We’re a diverse producer nation for the geographic space we occupy, and Portuguese wine is mostly tailored to Portuguese wallets - which trail behind the rest of Europe (and certainly North America). In fact, this has been a much debated issue among our producers: how to shed the image of Portuguese wine as a mere budget friendly alternative among importers, given that we can never compete with the productive capacity of New World countries.
The consequence of this is that I am, in fact, almost wholly ignorant of the wine world. Portugal has roughly 250 native grape varieties, and the international varieties everyone knows - the very foundation of the wine industry - are the exception to the rule here. I’m glad it’s that way, because our varieties are our differentiating factor, but it also means that Pinot Noir and Malbec are merely things I’ve heard about, much as Encruzado or Alfrocheiro will be for the majority of foreign consumers.
I first dabbled into wine from other countries when I wanted to get my dad a Christmas gift that would actually surprise him. I decided to go for the most unorthodox possible place and came across a freaky (in a good way) warehouse/store/consulting company in Lisbon that only sells wine from small producers, Portuguese and foreign, mostly biodynamic and relatively affordable, in a quirky, fresh, anti-mainstream paradigm (no oaky fruit bombs, ever). I told the crew about my taste for old whites, which I share with dad (a 1984 Poço do Lobo was one of the best things I ever put my lips on, at Lisbon’s Belcanto restaurant) and, failing to produce something exactly in that register, they handed me a 2011 Loire Chenin Blanc and a Jura vin jaune (2012 by Jacques Puffeney to be more specific). I thought they were both gorgeous, and quite unlike anything I’d ever had. The vin jaune was the perfect fit for our ‘queijo da Serra’ cheese.
Not long after that particular Christmas, a family friend who lives in Firenze offered us a bottle of Barolo. I was absolutely blown away, and again, it’s because it didn’t taste quite like anything I’d ever had before. I then started going to that small warehouse more regularly. Knowing it’s probably a wine that will be more elegant than Barolo and not in need of quite as much cellar time, I got a 2013 Roagna Barbaresco from them, which is still stored away. I was also convinced into getting my first Garnacha and my first Alsatian Sylvaner, both still unopened. Lastly, I was at a Riesling vertical tasting in February, fascinated by how greenish and young a 2008 white could look, and again felt the doors of a different world left ajar.
You may have noticed that - guilty as charged - I have never, in my whole life, tasted a single wine from Bordeaux or Burgundy. As a classical musician, to me it sounds much like loving classical music and having never heard anything written by a German composer. Silly, at best! Reading just about any thread in this forum I feel like I’m trying to decipher a foreign language. I’ve heard of the legendary French wines which get 100 point ratings and sell for thousands, and recognize their names, but apart from those - which I’ll likely never taste - I have very little knowledge of what goes on beyond the border at Vilar Formoso. I still have a lot to discover in my own country - even the Wine Advocate’s Mark Squires has said he feels overwhelmed by the amount of producers, big and small, with quality projects over here - but I’d also like to get a proper wine education, and any proper education is diversified and well rounded.
So how should I go about doing it? The small warehouse I’ve been going to sells mostly stuff outside the mainstream (their most well represented Burgundy producer is a fellow with a wonderful moustache named Jean Claude Rateau), and although we have a few importers, such as Garrafeira Nacional, I have no idea how to exercise my judgement. Last but not least, there are the budget considerations: with the exception of the legendary Barca Velha and Pêra Manca brands, Portuguese top level wines never really go above 150€, and that is definitely not what happens with imported wine.
Thank you so much in advance!
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}