Hugo Mendes Touriga Nacional Rosé 2021

-

The more I dive into the world of wine, the more I come across interesting and fascinating projects, such as this one by Hugo Mendes. 

Born out of a crowdfunding, Mendes is producing wines with grapes that he is buying from different producers and different regions. This grants him complete freedom on the kind of wines he is producing. 

Following a low intervention philosophy, this is quite an exciting project where you can find from amphora wines to orange or some more "conventional" ones, which end up not being conventional at all. 

In this case, it is a rosé made exclusively of Touriga Nacional from a region which is not particularly known for this grape. 

I have first tried this wine at a wine festival when I have recently visited Portugal and tried it now again in Hamburg where I am trying to convince my chef to start importing the wines from this project.

It is quite a dense rosé, revealing very good acidity allied with some herbal notes and red berries which potentiate its gastronomic potential. Its intensity in the palate has reminded me of some orange wines as well as its freshness.  I have to admit that this is the second time I am writing a review about a rose, which clearly indicates that rosé is not really my cup of tea. 

But in this case, I have to admit that I really enjoyed it and can only recommend it to all the ones who manage to get hold of one of the 2900 bottles which were produced. 

To celebrate the positive revolutions in the wine world I share with you a translation of one of the poems that often come to my mind.


Time changes, and our desires change. What we
believe - even what we are - is ever-
changing. The world is change, which forever
takes on new qualities. And constantly,
we see the new and the novel overturning
the past, unexpectedly, while we retain
from evil, nothing but its terrible pain,
from good (if there's been any), only the yearning.
Time covers the ground with her cloak of green
where, once, there was freezing snow - and rearranges
my sweetest songs to sad laments. Yet even more
astonishing is yet another unseen
change within all these endless changes:
that for me, nothing ever changes anymore.

Luís de Camoes


18/20
Country:Portugal
Region: Tejo
Grapes: Touriga Nacional
12%
Winemaker: Hugo Mendes

Website: http://www.twawine.com/

Location: Hamburg, Germany

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marquesa da Alorna Reserva das Pedras Tinta Miúda 2019

-
Image
 Having been back in Portugal I have experienced how a different social wine culture can influence your global experience as a tourist with a special gastronomic focus. I was deeply impressed with how you could simply get reasonable and totally acceptable wine wherever you went, contrasting with most experiences that I have from northern Germany where you often get overpriced wine that I often refuse to drink.  Working at a wine shop that regularly sells wine to different restaurants, it is almost painful to see what we sell and how it is further sold after being applied the four times the price rule in what is locally seen as the only way to make it slightly profitable to sell wine.  This leads to normal guests thinking that a 25€ wine at a restaurant is a medium class wine which is, in fact,  an entrance level or even bulk wine. The price of  a 0,2l glass often goes around 6€. I do am conscious that Germany has a different life standard than Portugal, but that...
Read more

Sentiero delle Gerle 2023

-
Image
The other day I have found myself wondering which wine I needed to buy.  Even though the answer, on a first level, seemed quite obvious to me  that I did not need any more wine as my basement is considerably full and I am drinking considerably little at home these days. Still, I thought that a white Etna wine was missing in my collection as it is something that I always like to go back to. And what about an Alvarinho from Rheinessen? That can be quite an interesting thing to try and trick close friends on a coming tasting.  This confers my wine collection an almost library feeling to it.   But unlike what happens with books, at least with mine that I have an almost existential problem about getting rid off any book that has entered the premises independently whether I have read it or not,  with wines I do end up drinking them and acquiring new ones giving the feeling of a living entity to my enoteca ( I am terribly sorry about this but the feeble translatio...
Read more

Chardonnay Unfiltered 2022 Peth Wetz.

-
Image
 There are few places where I feel much at home as the central library in Hamburg.  In its infinite chaos of people, events, places to read, work or to have a cup of coffee I feel a tremendous peace and deep sense of order in an almost Saramago 's way when he has written that " chaos is merely order to be deciphered". It is also an endless source of inspiration in what concerns what I will read next and, consequently, what I will be cooking and drinking. I know this may seem a rather wild idea connection but as I am getting older I am growing more sensitive in this very particular issue.  Through books I am becoming what Stanislaw Lem has described as a gastronaut in his The Star Diaries .  After having scrolled through Giorgio Locatelli's Siete tutti invitati I felt an urge of going back to experimenting some Italian food and I have found myself cooking some fregula with aubergine and fennel.  As soon as I have started cooking it, of course that the question...
Read more