Wine Fictions

 To come across a grape that you do not know is always an amazing moment that you can almost compare to when meeting someone you feel direct empathy to. I may be exaggerating, but if it is a grape that directly connects to our senses then it may well be a not too wrong of a comparison.  Last week I had the privilege to come across several expressions of Kadarka at an event organized by the Wine Academy in Hamburg aiming to promote the work of the Fine Wines Association of Hungary.     At a given time a question has emerged on how to market grapes which are unknown to the major public. The same person who has raised the question has also suggested that the Hungarian producers should have a comparison table to what the autochthonous grapes could compare to. I have to confess that this is a question that deeply irritates me as Furmint is not Riesling and Kadarka is not a spicy Pinot Noir. Having a huge passion for Portuguese wines this is a question that often occurs ...

This time, I would like to share a wine that it was lively recommended to me at Arinto e Touriga in Santarém and that has the particularity of having let me come across a grape that it was for me pretty unknown, only have heard it as playing side role in Port wine cuvées and under the name of Marufo.  Even though it is in a cuvée it only made it more interesting to see how three different grapes play its role in building a singular wine.  In fact, it is not as simple as that: Mourisco has been fermented first, and on top of the fermented grapes, the Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca came later to do their fermentation, making a general second fermentation of the wine. It later matures for ten months in barriques.  In this case, it is also to see the work and very personal note of the winemaker.   And the final result is absolutely fascinating! Unlike traditional Douro wines where the stylistic tends to resemble the one in Bordeaux, this Trifasico is really fr...

 I will start this post with a book recommendation: the German author Carsten Henn has recently published  Simply Wine  where he goes around 66 questions that you are often confronted with when handling with wine.  Even though it is quite centered in the German market and some of its specificities, this was a pleasant read, punctuated by humorous comments (who said Germans don`t have humour?) which had the plus of dismounting some of the most generalized myths around wine without getting into big polemics, such as his personal opinion about nature wines. Still only available in German, I do recommend a go if you are able to get it. What you should also get is the 2020 Silvaner GG by Rainer Sauer. Made out of on my favourite German grapes, this Silvaner shows not only the typical freshness and minerality that make it compete with the best Rieslings around, but also an accurate and perfectionist work in the cellar. Spontaneously fermented, reveals a tremendous complex...

When I have started wondering why I like certain kind of wines, it soon became clear to me that I had in the Douro reds a source of infinite offer that really pleased me. The effect of the schist soils provokes in me a whole sensory experience that awakes some of my deepest feelings and sensations. Sure is that grapes like Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca or Tinta Roriz, which in Spain is known as Tempranillo do play a major role, but the soil does establish a special connection to real essence of the wine.  I know that I what I have written may sound rather esoteric, but wine is not always a completely exact science and, in fact, the best moments are the ones that you manage to disconnect what is your conscious perception of a wine's quality and let yourself go in the pleasure that it can grant you. As I have written before, the Douro reds were my first wine passion. Being so, I soon grew curious to know how this terroir expressed itself on the other side of the border in Ribera d...

 At the recent wine fair of the Vignerons Independants at the scenic Altona Cruise Center I have came across a new kind of wine that I have never heard of before: Ratafia . .  Produced in the Champagne region by adding neutral tasting brandy to not fermented must it is a different approach on the creation of sweet wines, differing from the classic Port or the late harvest methods. This one, produced by Michel Gonet in 1996, is made exclusively from Pinot Noir grapes following an extraordinary year.    What has impressed me the most in this wine was how the dominant raisin flavours revealed themselves tremendously fresh and vigorous, with pristine acidity that grants it a long and parfumed ending. I always find it interesting to see which wines stand out after a long and more than interesting wine fair, filled with great wine projects from all over France.  Even though I was positively impressed with the Champagnes from the Gonet family and with the cativating pe...

 A couple of months ago I have gone through a rather emotional moment as a shelf I have just started putting my wines in the basement has suddenly fallen apart.  I can not really find the appropriate words to describe the shock it has taken over me as I have seen an almost literal river of wine gurgling out of the broken bottles invading the basement of my neighbours as well.   After having cleaned a mess of broken glasses that were swimming in a dark and almost viscous liquid that has left an intense smell all over the garage attracting a huge number of neighbours that have came to witness my misery, I have decided not to have a look at what I have lost.  I know there were a couple of bottles that I have bought for a special moment but, instead of looking to what I have lost, I have decided to celebrate the ones that have survived.  One of them was this Bastardo from Casa da Passarella. And I couldn't be more happy about it.  This has been a wine that...