Do you ever have those nights when you just want something simple? When anything other than opening a package of meat and putting it directly on the grill sounds too complicated and annoying. A few nights ago, we had this exact experience, debating whether ordering Chinese food wasn’t a bad option; but instead, we opted for a simple dinner of chili lime marinated grilled chicken with a tossed salad and a white monovarietal Portuguese wine made with Verdehlo. Simple. Good for watching the full moon. And ended up being one of the best no brainer meals we’ve had in awhile. Funny that!

The white grape varietal, Verdehlo, is primarily known for its elaboration in Madeira wines, but is rarely talked about as a table wine varietal. I, actually associated it with the Spanish Verdejo when we first looked at the bottle, quickly learning that I wasn’t even the ballpark. It does, however, go by two other names in the Douro, Gouvieo and Vidonia, and as Madeira outside of the Iberian Peninsula. It is said to have been cultivated in Portugal since the 1400’s, but with the outbreak of Phylloxera in the 1900’s, what was once a prominent grape in Portugal was destroyed and had to be later revived by the Madeira authorities in early 1970s. Nowadays, you can find these small, acidic, oval berries with a hard golden skin in the Douro Valley, Terra do Sado region and Western France where they make dry, fruity white table wines. New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia are also experimenting with this varietal in both blends and as a monovarietal wine.

The Domingos Soares Franco Coleccao Privada 2006 Verdehlo from Jose Maria da Fonseca was fabulous and really surprising. Although, we’ve both had our fair share …

It was chilly last night, really chilly. As the sun set upon Terrassa, and the yellow hues faded to a reddish glow that cascaded upon our livingroom floor as if someone spilled a bucket of crimson paint, Ryan and I looked at each other internally agreeing with a roll of our eyes that the last thing we wanted to do on a Friday night was to research yet another Portuguese Quinta. The involved steps of collecting their information, reading up on their history and finally picking apart each and every nuance of their series of labels and styles can feel as exciting and tantalizing as watching paint dry.

Looking at the wines on the floor like little glass soldiers preparing for battle, we sighed with slight contempt. Do we choose one producer? We could, but we didn’t have a producer that gave us two whites, and not being in the mood for a red and white, this wouldn’t work. Do we choose one white grape varietal? This was also a possibility, but of the few white monovarietals we had sitting on our floor, none of them were compatible with a low key Friday night hoedown. So in the end, we decided on 3 white blends from 3 different producers in the Vinho Verde region with “branco”, white, listed on the front of the label.

That settled, we came across our second obstacle. Wanting to nibble on our randomly thrown together platter of Tapas, but not wanting to eat before we tasted the wine, we pulled a MacGyver. Taking a little orange metal bucket from the living room into the kitchen, we opened the freezer only to find one remaining plastic blue ice tray remaining. Clang. Click. Clank. We dropped …

A few days ago, we shared a fabulous wine and gourmet food shop for you to visit in Lisbon; however, what I failed to include in our article were the wines we tasted during our visit. Drat! I could fluff it up and tell you that the exclusion was intentional, but that would place me in a really pathetic position because it would also be a bold face lie. The fact is, is that I honestly forgot to talk about the wines, simply because I was so excited to share a fantastic foodie spot with you. Accepting my horrific failure as a wine writer by keeping my thumb and forefinger in a permanent “L” position across my forehead, allow me the opportunity to correct my error.

Can any white wine age? I present this question because I honestly didn’t know the answer when we tasted through 3 white wines made with native Portuguese varietals that had been aged for up to 7 years. When Mafalda, co-owner of Aromas & Sabores in Lisbon, ecstatically set down the wines for us to pair with the her regional gourmet Tapas (I’m at a loss for another word being that Tapas is technically only used in Spain, but hey, I’m feeling a bit rebellious), I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until well after the meal that I began pondering the fact that I knew very little about how white wine ages.

Living in Iberia, you are privy to hearing massive generalizations on what should and should not be cellared. Here are a few examples of what we hear pretty regularly:

“White barrel aged Riojas can absolutely be cellared for quite some time, gaining greater depth and complexity!”

“White wines like Txacoli and Alvarino need to be drunk right …

Last night, having put an entire chicken on the grill to accompany our mixed green salad topped with toasted gooey goat cheese rounds, we tasted a brand new range of wines from *Sogrape Vinhos called Pena de Pato. What we found most interesting about these wines, beyond their name “quill” for which I am still curious to know the story behind, is that they cover 4 different regions - Douro, Dao, Vinho Verde and Alentejo. Sadly, I can tell you very little about the wines. Through deductive reasoning (a phrase I so rarely get to pull off in a wine article), we can assume that these wines are not available on the market as of yet as a result of our inability to find them in any retail store, and because their brand website is just now being put together. However, just to be sure, I attempted to gain more information this morning through a handful of phone calls to Sogrape’s main office, which didn’t turn out so well. When my call was answered, I was promptly transferred and hung-up on. So, I made a second attempt, which ended the same. By the third attempt, I finally gave up when the guy just picked up the phone and transferred me without even a hello. Note to self: hanging up on a journalist is bad juju, but hanging up 3 times on a blogger is just asking for the red pen to come out of its deep, dark chamber.

From what we can tell though they appear to be a line of wines made for the retail grocery and most likely are not ones to lay down. All very …

 

 Masks and Wine in Lisbon: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We love stumbling upon the unexpected. In fact, that is the story of our life. Our best friends were for the most part all made this way, and our best memories have been created when things happen to us by chance. Such is the case with today’s podcast/story. Wandering back home after our first day of visiting Lisbon, we ran into an art opening that highlighted the traditions of masks and costumes that are prevalent through out Spain and Portugal. A true Iberian event!

The best part of our happen chance event, was that to further explain the masks and the history behind them, they offered a wine tasting from the regions from which they studied the mask culture. Obviously, we couldn’t pass this up, so we paid our 2.50 Euros and not only saw amazing masks, traditional garb and photographs of the festivals themselves, but we also had a chance to try some AMAZING sparkling wines from the producer, Murganheira. We love sparkling wines from all over, but these were something special, and we were fortunate enough to have met the winemaker of Murganheira the following day at Vini Portugal. More on that later, but for now, enjoy the audio!

History of Máscara Ibérica
Máscara Ibérica (Iberian Mask) exposition will be traveling throughout Iberia until the 5th of November. The goal of the exposition is not only to create more cross cultural dialogue between Spain and Portugal, but also as an effort to preserve and promote the cultural traditions of Iberia as a whole. The exhibit features the mask traditions in both Galicia, Spain and Zamora, a region in northern Portugal showing over 60 photographs from 17 different …