Portugal’s spectacularly scenic Douro Valley is well known for its Ports, but there’s more to it than that. It has, of course, always produced small amounts of table wine, mostly for domestic consumption. The best known was a wine called Barca Velha. But, since the 1990s increasing amounts of wine have been made with an eye to export.
Standards of production, and even branding and packaging, have improved enormously throughout Portugal and good wines can be made everywhere, but Douro is for me the standard bearer. Obviously it’s mostly reds made from the main Port varieties like Touriga Nacional, Tinta Franca and Tinta Roriz, but some very smart whites are being made too from indigenous and frankly hard to pronounce varieties like Viosinho, Arinto and Gouveio.
Wines tasted Today on the Show
Andreza Viosinho Verdelho Branco 2012 DOC Douro, €13.99
Stockists: CelticWhiskeyShop.com
A blend, not just of the two grapes in the name Viosinho and Verdelho, but also Rabigato and Arinto. It’s part fermented in barrel and part in stainless steel. Douro whites can be surprisingly fresh and crisp given the extreme heat in the region.
Niepoort Sásta Douro 2013, €16.95
Stockists: TheCorkscrew.ie, Mitchells, Green Man in Terenure, Wicklow Wines, Mortons, and Martins
A unique project in which this wine is labelled differently in each market. Each one, though, is labelled with a storyboard-like cartoon created by a local artist. The Irish version is called Sásta and the label was drawn by Dubliner Fintan Taite and depicts St Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland.
The wine is classic Douro made from Port varieties including Tinta Franca and Touriga Nacional and so it has plum like fruit and gentle liquorice and tea like spice. Niepoort is a Dutch family business that has been trading in the Douro since the 1840s, currently run by dynamic Dirk Niepoort. He has been in the vanguard of promoting Douro wines and is part of a group of top quality producers known collectively as ‘The Douro Boys’.
Martin Moran is a Master of Wine, and a regular contributor to Moncrieff's Movies & Booze. Tune in live from 3.15 every Friday, or catch the show's podcasts here.
