Last month, when my parents were in town visiting, I took them on one of my favorite local winery tours, the Manor House Museum Tour of José Maria da Fonseca. Easy to find on their website, this legendary Portuguese winery offers daily tours of the founder’s original estate and winery located in the town of Azeitão, just 40 minutes outside of Lisbon in the Terras de Sado wine region. For a small price, you can walk through the antique cellars that still hold their famous barrel-aged red, Periquita and their 100+ special reserve Moscatels de Setubal, while learning about their illustrious wine-making history. At the end, you offered a tasting of 2-3 wines, normally consisting of a white, red and Moscatel.

Being my second visit to the estate, and having already savored some of their whites and Moscatels before, I was looking forward to tasting a red. That paticular day, they had the 2004 Domini, their flagship Douro red produced under their Domingo Soares Franco label with the partnership of Christain Van Zeller of Quinta do Vale Dona Maria. This unfiltered wine aged three months in new oak is a blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinto Roriz (Tempranillo) and is a beautiful deep red-purple with the aroma of dark fruit, leather, earth and wild mushroom, which I love and have come to encounter in many Douro reds - reminding me of lovely right-bank Bordeaux reds. The palate is more of the dark fruit, plums and black currants with smooth but persistent tannins.

…

Last night was one of the first evenings, in quite some time, that we took a big break away from drinking La Rioja wines. Sigh…it felt magical to take a massive step to the right and look adoringly at the bottle of 2005 Quinta do Vale Meão sitting regally alongside my red wine braised pork cheeks and steamed artichokes. And although we’ve had this wine before with Francisco Javier de Olazabal in Oporto last February, it was lovely to have a moment where we could enjoy a Portuguese treasure.

Quinta do Vale Meão has fashioned a remarkable reputation for itself since its inception in 1877. Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira originally bought the 270 hectares of land in the Douro Superior, which were later placed under the massive Sogrape umbrella. Dona Antónia’s great grandson, Francisco Javier de Olazabal, has now taken control of the 65 hectares, which are comprised of various soil types including, granite and alluvial gravel.

The 2005 Quinta do Vale Meão shows gorgeous and dense floral and chocolate notes, a complex and concentrated mouthfeel, and a long, luxurious finish. This is a fantastic wine!

Gabriella

Dark and vibrant blood red, clean in color with an intense radiance. I’m swooning right now, as the nose is just brimming with absolutely beautiful aromas of violet, pure liquid chocolate, anise, tar, wet earth, cinnamon, raw meat, etc. etc. etc. The layers and intricate nuances in the bouquet are so intense and profound that it’s almost impossible to take my nose out of this glass. In the mouth, the wine …

I woke up this morning with a very odd thought clanking in my brain, “If the Fantastic Five port varietals are so famous, why don’t I have a clue as to how they each contribute to the pot?” I’ll readily admit that I rarely wake up…scratch that, I NEVER have woken up with a question about grape varietals springing to mind, but this morning was different. As I slowly came out of my groggy and rather disoriented state, exemplified by my tripping over the cat and jamming my shoulder into the door frame on my way to brew coffee, I was annoyed that I knew a ridiculous amount about Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz, but absolutely nothing about Tinta Barroca, Tinto Cão and Touriga Franca. If they’re important players, a girl needs to be informed!

So with cat in tow, I sat down with the “Oxford Companion to Wine”, “Jancis Robinson’s Guide to Wines Grapes”, and Richard Mayson’s book, “Port and the Douro“. I then flipped on my computer, watched my cat stretch across the keyboard in a clear effort to help with my research, and I opened a series of my favorite Portuguese wine websites.

Here’s what I found:

Touriga Nacional
Also known as Preto Mortãgua, it is the eighth most planted red grape in the Douro, but only accounts for 2 percent of the vine stock in Portugal. Renowned for its excessive vigor and variable yields, this small, thick-skinned berry produces some incredibly dark, tannic and intensely flavored wines with a high level of alcohol. I know this grape well, because its signature aromas are violets, roses and bergamot, exemplified in the majority of our tasting notes this past month. Touriga Nacional is one of my favorite grapes. Because it not …

Portugal equals Port wine, right?! This statement is dead on for so many of you, but this wasn’t the case if we go back a few generations. In the 1940s, there were two brands that epitomized Portuguese wine to the global market: Mateus and Lancers. Both wines were presented in uniquely shaped bottles that appeared to be created for one purpose only, to hold candles, which consequently, made them unforgettable. Roses and slightly sweet, both labels helped shape a generation of wine drinkers, appreciated for their icon value than for their sophistication or “rating”.

Lancers
At the end of WWII, Americans wanted a beverage to toast in celebration without having to drink the bold European wines of the age. Inspired by Antonio Soares Porto’s creation of a light rose called Faisca, Henry Behar sailed to Portugal in 1944 to visit Maria da Fonseca. Suggesting that they market Faisca to the American public as both a versatile and refreshing wine that is spec, Fonseca stuck a deal with Behar’s distribution company and launched the emblematic rose wine, Lancers.

What is of particular interest to me is how the original name and shape of the bottle morphed into what we know it as now. As a result of the wine’s baptized name, “Faisca” being too close a bedmate to Fiasco, they canned it entirely for a fresh new name based on the title of Behar’s favorite Velasquez painting, “Las Lanzas”. The shape and material of the bottle, however, was based on a marketing ploy to offer Americans something easily distinguishable from other wine bottles of the time. The campaign was extremely successful causing sales to soar over 1 million bottles in th 1970’s, there was a slight problem. Ceramic breathes. And when ceramic breathes, it allows oxygen …

2003 Quinta do Carrasqueiro Douro - Portugal, Douro (9/26/2006)12.5% alcohol - Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta BarrocaDeep marroonish and very dark. On the nose wet slate, earth, leather, and white peppers, with black cherry and anise showing as it opens up. Strong acidity with medium weight tannins. The palate shows underripe raspberry flavors , sour, and is hollow. This wine is more delicate with only 12.5 alcohol, and while it’s nose is rich and inviting the palate seems to leave these flavors behind. With it’s strong acidity it did pair well with a lamb and parsnip dish I made.

*sample from the winery