New Wine of the Week – a fine red from Portugal’s Douro Valley

The beautiful terraced vineyards of the Douro Valley.

Portuguese wine is so underrated. The country is awash with wonderful wine regions, fabulous grape varieties and winemakers with real ability and passion. It troubles me that so few Portuguese wines are generally available in the UK, it suggests that there is very little demand and that is a shame.

However, for those of us who are open minded enough to enjoy them, the few Portuguese wines that are available are real stars and really reward the dedicated – try this great value gem here as an example. How they turn out such quality at that price amazes me.

Recently I tasted yet another great wine from the Douro – two in fact as I also tried the magnificent and beautifully mature Duas Quintas Reserva which is available from the Wine Society for £25 a bottle – and it reminded me how much I love the wines from this exciting region.

The Douro rises in Spain where it is known as the Duero River, it serves as the border between the two Iberian neighbours for quite a way, before heading West and cutting Portugal in half. In Portugal the rugged, hot, slate slopes produce the grapes for Port, but in recent years the region has become one of the most exciting for un-fortified wine too. Although mainly red, although there are some lovely whites as well – I wrote about the region’s development here.

Bruno Prats (left) and Charles Symington (right), wine makers – photo courtesy of the winery.

The wine I tasted was produced by Prats & Symington and it was so good that I decided to make it my Wine of the Week.

2012 Post Scriptum de Chryseia
DOC Douro
Prats & Symington
Portugal

The Symington family are the pre-eminent growers in the Douro Valley and own many of the famous Port houses – Grahams, Dows, Cockburns – as well as the great Quintas – or wine estates – that produce their grapes. In 1998 they decided to get serious and ambitious about their non-fortified wines as well. To this end they went into partnership with Bruno Pats who is the former owner of Château Cos-d’Estournel in Saint-Estèphe (also click here) in the Médoc area of Bordeaux. Because the Douro is such a famous and old established wine region, it is amazing to realise that this only happened in 1998 – non-fortified wines are a newish thing here. I must also mention that the Symington family produces some brilliant table wines with no Prats involvement too, Quinta do Vesuvio is one of the very best red Douro wines that I have tasted – it’s available here -, while its second wine the Pombal do Vesuvio is nearly as fine. For stylish moire everyday drinking I am a huge fan of their Altano range – especially the superb Organic Quinta do Ataide and Quinta do Ataide Reserva.

The wine they produced was called Chryseia (US stockist here)- it means golden in Greek, just as Douro does in Portuguese – and it was made from Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca grapes, grown at Quinta de Roriz and Quinta da Perdiz and it became an instant classic, highly prized and much in demand.

In 2002 they launched Post Scriptum, which while it is described as a partner, really acts as a second wine and uses a second selection of the fruit. I have tasted many vintages of it though and the wine is always first-rate.

The vineyard, clearly showing the wonderful decayed slate, or schist soils – photo courtesy of the winery.

The 2012 is 53% Touriga Franca, 45% Touriga Nacional and a little dollop of other Douro grapes, most likely Tinto Roriz – which is Tempranillo. After a rigorous selection, the grapes undergo a cold fermentation and the finished wine is aged for 13 months in 400 litre French oak barrels.

As soon as you sniff it you can tell this is a rather special. There are rich black fruit notes, floral notes, spices, warm, rocky mineral notes and a light dusting of smoky tobacco.

The palate is full, but velvety smooth with the tannins giving just a touch of firmness. There is black cherry and black plum a plenty, together with liquorice and eucalyptus characters. It is concentrated and rich, but beautifully balanced with a lovely seem of fresh acidity and the wonderful salty minerality that is the hallmark of the Douro – 92/100 points.

This is a great value fine wine and a real treat. The quality is superb and it goes brilliantly with all sorts of food, especially stews, casseroles and roast meats – I had it with lamb and it was superb.

Available in the UK at £17.50 per bottle from The Wine Society.
The equally fine 2013 vintage is available from Tanners for £20.90 per bottle.
For US stockists, click here.

New Wine of the Week – another Lugana

Verona Arena, Lugana is not far from Verona.

I have been drinking rather a lot of this little beauty lately and have enjoyed it so much that I thought it deserved to be my Wine of the Week.

It is a Lugana and it is made by the respected firm of Zenato, but that is really all I can tell you about – except how nice it is – because Zenato’s website fails to mention, as does the site of their UK agent and neither of them have seen fit to respond to my emails or telephone calls.

On a recent trip to Verona I was very struck by Lugana and it has quickly become my one of my favourite Italian dry white wines. If you want to read a little about the region, the grape variety and the styles of Lugana, have a look here.

Anyway, here it is:

2014 Villa Flora Lugana
Zenato
Peschiera del Garda
Italy

I love this style of wine and although it bright, fresh and breezy I can drink this in the depths of winter with a nice bit of fish, some shellfish or even with the odd cheese straw as an aperitif.

The nose is understated, taut and delicately fruity with wafts of light white peach, apricot and blossom. There are herbs and nuts too, as well as straw and a tight, stony quality. The palate is reasonably full with some texture and even a hint of cream. This is not really a flamboyant wine, but neither is it truly crisp – although there is some zing. The herb and nuts follow through onto the palate and there is a lovely squeeze of citrus – a fusion of lemon, lime and mandarin perhaps – while at its core is an equally refreshing stony mineral quality. A delicious wine that goes with all manner of light dishes, fish, chicken or whatever takes your fancy. – 86/100 points.

Available in the UK at £9.99 per bottle from Waitrose Cellar, Waitrose and Ocado.

Wine of the Week and my Wine of 2015 – a superb red Rioja from Contino

My first Wine of the Week for 2016 and very possibly my Wine of the Year in 2015 – although there is some stiff competition and I could easily choose something else – was rather fittingly the wine I was drinking as the new year began and 2015 was consigned to history.

I had struggled to think of what to drink with my slow cooked garlicky lamb – not because I did not know what to serve with it, but because I had far too many options as lots of different wines go brilliantly. Grenache, Claret, Cabernet, Merlot, Rioja, Ribera del Duero and Jumilla would lead the pack for reds for me, but whites can work very well too, especially Marsanne and Rousanne blends. In the end I chose something really, really special and I am very glad that I did.

It was a Rioja from Contino which is a single estate winery in Rioja Alavesa just a little north and west of Logroño. Many of you may be surprised that I emphasise that it comes from a single vineyard or estate, but that is quite rare in Rioja. Most Rioja is a branded product made from fruit sourced from a number of vineyards – much like Champagne usually is – and single estate wines are very far from being the norm.

Contino was the first single estate Rioja wine, certainly in modern times, and it was created in 1973 by the Real de Asúa family. This enterprising bunch – or their ancestors anyway – had previously set up the great Rioja house of CVNE in 1879 and their descendants continue to run CVNE (often written as Cune) – Compañía Vinicola del Norte de España or The Northern Spanish Wine Company – who produce Monopole, Imperial and Viña Real wines as well as Contino.

Rioja map- click for a larger view

In fact the family had bought grapes from the vineyard that became Contino for many decades and used them in their Viña Real wines, the modern Viña Real estate and winery is very near Contino. According to Jesús Madrazo, the charming, affable, inquiring and wonderfully talented winemaker at Contino, they always knew these grapes were special and so when the owners came to CVNE and explained that they wanted to retire but had no heirs to take the vineyard on, they jumped at the chance to acquire this amazing 62 hectare estate. It is situated just north west of Logroño and the Ebro river wraps around the estate making it appear to be a south facing peninsula. The vineyard is in effect a shallow south facing slope and so acts as a sun-trap and produces wonderfully ripe and concentrated wines.

The 8.5 hectare El Olivo block on the Contino estate.

José Madrazo Real de Asua was the family member who took on control of this estate and turned it into something very special in the region. José Madrazo retired in 2001 and sadly died in January 2015, but his son Jesús Madrazo took over the role has done a remarkable job of taking Contino to new heights. Over time they have changed the focus. Originally, as with most Rioja in those days, they blended all the grapes together, even the whites. For a few vintages now they have used those vines to craft one of the very finest white Riojas there is from a blend of Viura with Garnacha Blanca (Grenache Blanc) and Malvasia – actually that would have been great with my lamb too come to think of it.

José Madrazo, the brilliant and charming winemaker at Contino.

The main Contino wine is the red Contino Reserva, also available here, which never fails to impress me, but they now also produce some even more special wines. The pure Contino Garnacha (Grenache) is made from 70 years old vines and is one of the finest examples I have tried from Spain (together with these guys here). Their pure Contino Graciano is scintillating and a rare great example of this grape that should be better known. One of my favourite Riojas of all is always the wonderful Contino Viña Del Olivo wine made from a parcel of vines that surrounds an ancient olive tree – it is available here and here.

However, in the truly great years Jesús also makes a little Gran Reserva. This is traditionally only bottled in magnums (1.5 litres or 2 ordinary bottles) and I do like a magnum as it looks so dramatic on the dinner table. Anyway I dug out a magnum of the 2005 Gran Reserva to go with my lamb and it was so very good that I have made it my first Wine of the Week of 2016 and also my Wine of the Year for 2015.

Just in case you are not familiar with the regulations of what each type of Rioja actually is, here are the rules – all times are the minimum required and so the wines can be aged longer:

Joven / Cosecha	No oak ageing, or sometimes just a little. Oven never appears on the label, but often does on wine lists. Sometimes wines with a short amount of oak ageing are called Roble or Semi-Crianza, these are unofficial.
Crianza	1 year oak or tank ageing plus 1 year ageing in bottle – Crianzas can often offer very good value for money.
Reserva	1 year oak ageing plus 2 years ageing in bottle – these wines should only be produced in good vintages.
Gran Reserva	2 years oak ageing plus 3 year ageing in bottle – these wines should only be produced in the very best vintages.

2005 Contino Gran Reserva
DOCa Rioja
Viñedos del Contino
Rioja Alavesa, Rioja, Spain

This is a classic Rioja blend of 70% Tempranillo – 60 year old vines, 15% Graciano and 15% Garnacha aged for 36 months in American and French oak barrels. The American oak gives that classic touch of vanilla that is the hallmark of Rioja. 2005 was officially classified as an excellent – or rather excelente – vintage and produced some outstanding wines. Contino only made 2699 magnums of the 2005 Gran Reserva – mine was number 1236.

The colour is deep and sumptuous, while the nose is rich, enticing, spicy and smoky with touches of vanilla, cedar and mocha as well as rich, dark plums and blackberry. The palate is rich with wonderful concentration of fruit which together with the oak ageing gives a smooth, supple and silky wine that is always powerful and textured in the mouth – which is relatively unusual for Rioja. The wine leans towards being full-bodied with even some creaminess, but some lively freshness gives lovely balance and elegance by restraining the power, which makes it really drinkable and enjoyable. The tannins are perfectly tamed by the ageing, with just a little fine-grain tannin definition on the finish to help the structure of the wine. This is powerful, but it is not a showy blockbuster, it is a truly elegant and serious wine, one of the great Riojas – 95/100 points.

This truly is a great wine and I enjoyed it very much, but I think it would reward keeping for a good few years yet. There is no doubt that it needs food and is perfect with lamb, but it would also be fabulous with venison, duck or a good steak.

Available in the UK for around £100.00 – £135.00 per magnum from The Halifax Wine Company and Harrods.
Available in the US for around $140.00 – $170.00  per magnum from Woodland Hills Wine Company and Wired for Wine.