Falua Unoaked Reserva 2015

Following my recent positive experience of having a pure Touriga Nacional from the Tejo region, I have decided to keep on and try how it works as a "Reserva", and specially as unoaked to feel its

real potential.

The first contact with it could not be any better: an elegant dark violet colour with a full scent of berries promised an exciting experience.

The first sip was, though, surprising: along with the expected round and fruity taste, there was also some persistent minerality.

This gave it some freshness and the feeling that it does not have such a high alcohol percentage as it , in fact, has.

It is a very seductive wine, easily leading us through pleasant tasting paths and inviting for some Portuguese cod or strong cheeses.

Still, this first positive experience can be even better in the future as I may have opened it too early. I will definitely save a couple of bottles of it and try them in a couple of years.

To match with it, I made myself accompany of some of Bernardine Evaristo´s poetry:

Who do you love? Who do you love,

when the man you married goes off

for months on end, quelling rebellions

at the frontiers, or playing hot-shot senator in Rome;

his flashy villa on the Palatine Hill, home

to another woman, I hear,

one who has borne him offspring.

My days are spent roaming this house,

its vast mosaic walls full of the scenes on Olympus,

for my husband loves melodrama.

They say his mistress is an actress,

a flaxen-Fräulein type, from Germania Superior.

Oh, everyone envied me, Illa Bella Negreeta!

born in the back of a shop on Gracechurch Street,

who got hitched to a Roman nobleman,

whose parents sailed out of Khartoum on a barge,

no burnished throne, no poop of beaten gold,

but packed with vomiting brats

and cows releasing warm turds

on to their bare feet. Thus perfumed,

they made it to Londinium on a donkey,

with only a thin purse and a fat dream.

Here in the drizzle of this wild west town

Dad wandered the streets looking for work,

but there was no room at the inn,

so he set up shop on the kerb

and sold sweet cakes which Mum made.

(He's told me this story a mille times.)

Now he owns several shops, selling everything

from vino to shoes, veggies to tools,

and he employs all sorts to work in them,

a Syrian, Tunisian, Jew, Persian,

hopefuls just off the olive barge from Gaul,

in fact anyone who'll work for pebbles.

When Felix came after me, Dad was in ecstasy,

father-in-law to Lucius Aurelius Felix, no less.

I was spotted at the baths of Cheapside,

just budding, and my fate was sealed

by a man thrice my age and thrice my girth,

all at sweet eleven--even then Dad

thought I was getting past it.

Then I was sent off to a snooty Roman bitch

called Clarissa for decorum classes,

learnt how to talk, eat and fart,

how to get my amo amas amat right, and ditch

my second-generation plebby creole.

Zuleika accepta est.

Zuleika delicata est.

Zuleika bloody goody-two shoes est.

But I dreamt of creating mosaics,

of remaking my town with bright stones and glass.

But no! Numquam! It's not allowed.

Sure, Felix brings me presents, when he deigns

to come west. I've had Chinese silk, a marble

figurine from Turkey, gold earrings

shaped like dolphins, and I have the deepest

fondness for my husband, of course,

sort of, though he spills over me like dough

and I'm tempted to call Cook mid coitus

to come trim his sides so that he fits me.

Then it's puff and Ciao, baby!

Solitudoh, solitudee, solitudargh!

17/20

Country: Portugal
Region: Tejo
Grapes: Touriga Nacional
14,5%
Winemaker: Antonina Barbosa
Website: http://falua.net/produto/falua-unoaked/?lang=en