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Portugal Producers
Name: Portugal
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Luis is a very engaging, independently minded man whose warmth and ready smile obscures a spine of steel and an unflinching determination to do what is right. Although he is Bairrada`s finest and certainly most thoughtful producer, he hasn`t labelled most of his wines as such for years. He `moved` to Beiras when the `wrong person` was made head of the region. He wants to make Portuguese wines, not new world ones and although not afraid of innovation, this is exactly what he does. He just does it better than anyone else.
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Dirk Niepoort is an extremely bright and creative chap with a huge number of ideas, many of which have been incredibly successful in practice. It would appeal to me enormously if I thought he might be even slightly irritating to work for, but I doubt it. He knows the business inside out and the workings, history and potential of Niepoort even more intimately. It is that potential that he leverages so ruthlessly and effectively. -
Albariño in Spain, Alvarinho across the Miño/Minho River in Portugal. Either way, it’s the most favoured white grape variety in the north-western Iberian Peninusula. Its combination of steely acidity and stonefruit flavours lends itself to wines that are ripe and vigorous, and very often irresistible. On the Portuguese side of the border, Alvarinho also makes one of the best expressions of Vinho Verde (‘green wine’. the term is a reference to the verdant local countryside). The heartland of premium Vinho Verde is on the granitic soils and sunny slopes of Monção e Melgaço.
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The Douro Valley may be most famous for Port, but that is far from being its only great contribution the world of wine; too few people realise how good and how good value the table reds and whites made in the valley can be.
Quinta do Vale Meao was founded in the 1870s by one Antonia Ferreira, who dreamed of creating a model vineyard from nothing. It took her 8 years. Six generations later, the estate remains in the hands of her descendants.
