Underrated Portuguese wine

A lot of Macanese favourites, such as ‘Portuguese’ egg tart, pock chop bun, almond biscuit, dried beef, to name a few, are so popular among Hong Kong consumers that they are now readily available in Hong Kong. However, somehow we don’t quite share our neighbour’s love for Portuguese wine. Portugal is small but has a diverse climate and a wide variety of indigenous grapes, resulting in a myriad wine styles. To me, Italy and Portugal are very similar in terms of the range of climate, grape varieties, wine style, and also their fates in Hong Kong markets - both are overshadowed by their neighbours.

Probably because I worked in Portugal therefore I have a soft spot (yes, another one) for Portuguese wine. I like their honesty and rusticity - but don’t take this as cheap and cheerful or not worth ageing. Their top wine is concentrated and deep yet not posh. Recently I had a chance to taste a good range of Portuguese wine at Adega Royale portfolio tasting, and it felt good. The ones that particular stood out were:

Quinta da Calçada Exuberant Branco 2013 and Edicao Reserva Branco 2013: A blend of Alvarinho, Loureiro and Arinto, all indigenous grapes from the region of Vinho Verde. Both are elegant with persistent mineral finishes. A lot could be contributed to the age of the vines - the quinta holds some of the oldest vineyard in the region dating back to 1917 and the soil.

Solar dos Lobos (Mansion of the wolves in Portuguese) for its creativity of the labels. It literally put the technical sheet and tasting notes in cartoon form on the front label. Granted, the wines are not for the most discerning palates but they are made-well and the refreshing labels are humorous and welcoming to timid wine consumers, a big market that unfortunately most of the trade tend to overlook.

Quinta de Saes Reserva Estagio Prolongado Tinto 2012: A field blends of 28 varieties in from Dão, multilayer fruits, elegant with long finish.

Quinta do Fojo 1999: I would love to make wine like Margarida Serôdio Borges - making wine for fun without commercial pressure. She still makes wine in the style of her grandfather, fermenting in largares.

Quinta da Plansel Tinta Barroca Tinto 2013 and Touriga Franca Tinto 2013: I have tasted Dorina’s wine last year and they are delicious.

Luis Pato Vinhas Velhas Branco 2013: One of the best ‘entry level’ white wine.


A few years ago, I used to go to Macau to stock up Portuguese wine and luckily I don’t need to do anymore. Still it would be great to see more of them here in Hong Kong.

Thanks Haigan from Adega Royale for being a believer of Portuguese wine.

Bairrada’s ‘Godfather’, Luis Pato

If you don’t know Luis Pato, owner of the winery of the same name in Bairrada, Portugal, his casual and suntan look probably leads you to think he is just one of the many winegrowers making rustic style wine in a small village somewhere in Portugal and that the wine is mainly for local consumption.

Luis is a pioneer winemaker in Bairrada, the wine region to the west of Dão and north of Lisbon in Portugal, known for its tannic red wine made from Baga grapes. Luis was the first winemaker, back in 1985, to destem the grapes prior to fermentation and used French oak for ageing, thus taming its tannin and rusticity making it more approachable. In 1988, he planted ungrafted Baga on sandy soil to make a pre-phyloxera wine. Pé Franco was born in 1995, seven years after the vines were planted.

And if this is not enough, Luis made the first red wine with white grapes in 2011 to celebrate the birth of his second grandson. It is 94% Maria Gomes (also called Fernão Pires, a white grape) and 6% Baga's skin. Since regulation allows a wine not to state the grapes under 15%, Luis can name this wine as a single varietal white wine. He was experimenting with no sulphur red wine in 2013, it didn't’ work but he continues trying.

Luis makes sparkling, white and red. We tasted 13 of his wines plus five back vintages. I’m particularly impressed by these:

Luis Pato Baga Método Antigo Espumante 2013: a sparkling made in Rural Method (only one fermentation first began in tank then the fermenting wine is transferred to sealed bottles to finish fermentation, trapping the carbon dioxide inside). It is probably not everyone’s cup of tea as it tasted different in a nice way
- with bright red fruits and a bit of tannin.

Luis Pato Vinhas Velhas Branco 2013: a white wine made from Bical, Cerceal and Sercialinho, all native Portuguese grapes. It is fresh, zesty with a mineral note. The 2003 vintage reminded me of an aged Riesling. I was surprised when Haigan Wong from Adega Royale, the importer of Luis Pato, told me this is the ‘entry level’ white wine.

Quinta da Ribeirinho Pé Franco Tinto 2008: 100% Baga from ungrafted wine. Black fruits with a hint of floral, a structured yet graceful wine reminded me of a Nebbiolo. The back vintage we tasted (2001 I seem to remember) showed that that the wine can age well.

Luis Pato is available from Adega Royale (an importer focus on Portuguese wine).

Mono-varietal wine from Portugal

From vinho verde to port, Portuguese wines are mostly blended. 100% varietal wines only appeared about 30 years ago and they are mainly confined to Alentejo and the Algarve where wineries are often owned by foreigners. Even then, single varietal wines have mostly been limited to a few major varieties such as Touriga Nacional, Aragonez (aka Tinta Roriz in the north, or Tempranillo in Spain), and Syrah. Ironically, the only 100% Tinta Barroca I have ever tasted was Sadie’s Swartland Old Vines Series Treinspoor from South Africa! I shared a bottle with the Vintage Port Academy's founders and they said they had never come across a 100% Tinta Barroca in Portugal. So imagine how my eyes lit up when I got the opportunity to taste four single varietal wines from Portuguese native grapes from one winery over lunch.

The winery in question is Quinta da Plansel in Alentejo, owned by Dorina Lindemann, one of the few female winemakers in Portugal. Like most Alentejo winery owners, Dorina is not Portuguese. She is German, and after finishing her viticultural studies at the University of Geisenheim in Germany she joined her father, Hans Jörg Böhm, in Portugal to run his breeding nursery. Hans loves Portuguese wine so much that he sold his wine merchant business in Germany, took a course at the Geisenheim Research Centre and then founded Plansel SA in Alentejo with the objective of improving the nation’s viticultural stock via clonal selection to match with different rootstocks and terroirs.

Dorina made her first wine in 1996 and then, in 2001, her first single varietal wines: Tinta Barroca, Touriga Franca and Touriga Nacional. She believes that only mono-varietal wine can truly reveal the potential of a grape. Like all passionate winemakers, Dorina believes the vineyard is where the wine is made. Because of the dry conditions in Alentejo the vineyards need irrigation. But instead of using drip irrigation like most  modern wineries, Dorina floods the vineyard with water so that the majority of water is absorbed by the soil. She says this is the only way to make the vine roots go deep into the soil to get water, thus producing better quality fruit. She explained that drip irrigation, although using less water, makes the vines lazy as the roots never need to go deep.

The first wine we tasted was Selecta ‘Homenagem ao Thomas’ Tinto 2012, made from 100% Trincadeira in memory of Dorina’s late husband, Thomas, who passed away in 2008. According to Dorina this will always be a small production wine because Trincadeira is not easy to grow. So I was surprised to learn that this pleasant, well-balanced and fresh wine retails at a steal at $108/bottle. Dorina wants to keep the price affordable because the wine expresses her winemaking philosophy.

The next three varietal wines were Touriga Franca, Tina Barocca and Touriga Nacional. Dorina introduced them as male, female and bisexual respectively. Touriga Franca has a firm structure, Tinta Barooca is softer and more voluminous while Touriga Nacional is seductive yet with firm tannins—not a bad analogy at all. All three are elegant with supporting acidity making them not heavy to drink even on a hot summer's day. I loved the manly Touriga Franca and it went well with the bacalhau (cod). All three are reasonably priced at $298/bottle.

Dorina does also make blended wines. The Selecta Reserva Tinto (50% Tinta Barroca and 50% Aragonez) is her best seller, while the Dorina Lindemann Limited Edition (equal proportions of Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca) is only made in the best vintages.

Although I worked in the south of Portugal for three vintages, I have to admit that I don’t drink too many wines from the region here in Hong Kong because they are usually too heavy for the climate. Dorina’s wines changed my mind. Yes, they may have 14+% alcohol but all have a fresh natural acidity and ample fruit concentration. This is how a good wine should be: balanced and graceful.

By the way, if you are interested in native varieties of the Iberian Peninsula, check out Dorina’s father website, Vine to Wine Circle.

Quinta da Plansel is available from Adega Royale.

The Douro Boys

Apart from port, the next best thing from the Douro (or indeed Portugal) from a wine perspective is probably the Douro Boys.

An alliance of five independent family estates: Quinta do Vallado, Quinta do Crasto, Quinta do Vale D. Maria, Quinta do Vale Meão and Niepoort, Douro Boys was created in 2003 to ‘put the Douro on the map’. Back then, Portuguese wine was little known outside Portugal, let alone in Asia. Douro table wine had a few disadvantages: it was the little cousin of port, both in terms of popularity and quality. The best grapes were often designated for producing port, and most estates made table wine almost as an afterthought. White wine was often oxidised and red austere.

The status of port in the Douro is beyond doubt. All members of the Douro Boys make ports, but they have also noted the growing trend of red wine consumption. They believe in two things: to make the best quality wine with what the land offers them—indigenous grapes and terroir—and to be out there promoting their wines.

Douro wine is a blend of indigenous grapes. The names are sometimes near impossible to pronounce and it is difficult to single out a distinctive aroma that can be associated with the wines. An easy way out would be to replant the vineyards with international grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah. Luckily, the Douro Boys have not.

The light-heartedness of the group’s name contrasts nicely with the considerable avoirdupois (weight) of its members: dynamism and determination. They are accessible but the wines are serious. Each quinta has its own style and together they offer a good breadth of selection. With their energy, enthusiasm and commitment, they trot the globe, reviving the Douro image and in fact raising the overall quality standard of Douro wine. The international press writes about them with passion; critics rate their wines with respect and wine lovers, well, just love their wines.

Try yourself to see which of the Douro Boys is your style. Distributor of:
Quinta do Vallado, Quinta do Vale Meão and Niepoort: Vino Veritas
Quinta do Crasto: Adega Royale
Quinta do Vale D. Maria: Global Wine Cellar