Wines of Wisdom
Before moving here, I didn’t have a clue about Portuguese wines. Apart from Mateus Rose, we didn’t see much of it in Scotland. Perhaps it didn’t travel well. Or maybe the locals consumed so much, there wasn’t enough left worth exporting.
Spending nearly all of my time on these sunny shores means I’m studying the local ‘vinho’.
My student days were punctuated with bottles of Mateus Rosé, the wine of choice for post-pub Scottish parties. We’d get turfed out of the pub at 10pm in those days and someone, somehow had the fortitude to pick up a bottle of Mateus.
BRIGHT IDEAS
I met with José João Santos, the Content Director for ‘Essência do Vinho’, Portuguese wine’s promotional bureau when he was in Madeira quite recently. The first thing I asked him was why Mateus Rosé was so popular in the UK back in the 1970s.
“Besides fortified wines like Port and Madeira, Mateus Rosé was and still is our most popular brand,” he said. “It was a mix of marketing, history and timing.”
The brand appeared shortly after WWII when someone had the bright idea of putting a nice, easy-drinking rose wine into a rather unusually-shaped bottle. Production grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s and by the late 1980s, the slightly sparkling Mateus accounted for almost 40% of Portugal's total table wine export.”
The tear-shaped bottle became a social icon in 1970s Britain. Elton John sang about it in 1973; "I get juiced on Mateus,” and Graham Nash of The Hollies and CSNY included a bottle on the cover of his 1973 solo album “Wild Tales”.
Nearly every flat in Scotland had the bulbous bottle repurposed as a candle holder or, for the more technically capable, a table lamp!
MOVING ON
Since moving to Madeira, I haven’t tried Mateus although it still seems to be high in demand. But there are just so many other options.
José continued, “Portuguese people consume more wine per litre, per year than any other nation. Even more than the Italians, Spanish and French. We love wine! Since we are young, we see the vines everywhere, we participate in the harvest and it starts to develop the wine culture.”
“What is wine? It’s not just a drink! It’s not Coca-Cola! It’s not tea! Every wine is different! Every year of the origin of the wine is different! Every grape, and especially here in Portugal as we have hundreds of them is completely different! So for us, wine is a continuous discovery of taste, aromas and palate. Wine for us is culture!”
The good news is organisations such as José’s are trying to get the word out on Portuguese wine. “What we are saying is we have lots of diversity, dozens and dozens of different wine grapes. Let’s try them. At the same time, we are travelling all over the world, especially in the North American and Asian markets, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. If you haven’t tried Portuguese wine, you want to discover something which is completely different - white and red table wines. once they try it. Everyone all over the world wants to find something different.
GOLF AND WINE
Golf and wine are a perfect match - leisure, golf, travel, and Portuguese food. We are receiving more and more American people, not only for the golf but for the wine and food.
One thing I’ve noticed about spending time in Portugal is that your money goes a lot further. I regularly go into the supermarket here and come away with a superb, ‘on-offer’ €16 bottle for under €5. Some of my more snobby Portuguese friends sneer at this and say you shouldn’t pay any less than €12. But being Scottish and not (yet) a serious connoisseur, I’m happy with a more pedestrian plonk!
If you’re out for an evening meal, restaurants throughout Portugal, (unless very touristy) charge not that much more than regular supermarket prices. So, wine is definitely more accessible and affordable in this country!
So, what to look for with Portuguese wine?
First of all there are the main divisions of Vinho Tinto: Red, Vinho Branco: White and Vinho Verde: a green wine from the North of Portugal, a young wine, slightly sparkling with low alcohol content (9%) so easy to drink and suitable for a light lunch or ideal with seafood.
For evening affairs, I’m becoming more familiar with regional wines such as those from the Douro Valley, Alentejo and Dão. The Douro Valley is strongly associated with Port wine yet its table varieties are some of the best. The Douro region produces good reds, whites, and rosés but the reds stand out for the full-bodiedness. Papa Figos is a good example and shouldn’t cost more than €10 which is excellent value for such a rich, drinkable wine.
The best plan for the Douro Valley is to take a trip there personally and we have this planned for our mainland Portugal adventure for May 2020 so get in touch if your interested.
Alentejo
The other prominent region for rapacious reds is found south of Lisbon, the Alentejo region is Portugal’s biggest wine region and renowned for its high-alcohol, full-bodied reds. If you do the supermarket sweep, you’ll notice that this region takes up the largest area.
Dão
Although nowhere near as well-known as Porto, it’s often possible to find a bottle of wine from Portugal’s Dão wine region. Reds are most common, as 80% of the wines produced in the region are red, but it’s always worth keeping a look out for a white.
