WTN: Two smashing Portuguese table wines

A wineanorak friend of mine is leaving soon to tour Syria and Lebanon with a possible side trip to Petra. My obvious choice for the evening would of course have been Musar, but as all my Musars are too young to be drunk we opted for my friends other favourite country, Portugal. This seems to be an up and coming winery (which isn't?) which makes wines mostly from native grapes but with some Syrah grown also. The Ancestral is a blend of some native grapes (I've no idea which ones) and is judiciously oaked and a very fine wine indeed. The Fernão Pires is an unoaked white from an indigenous grape that doesn't seem to be much available as a varietal wine. I wonder why...this really appealed to me as an Albariño fan. Pinhal da Torre make some other, IMO less successful wines which are also more expensive. Their Syrah has a cult following and is massively oaked and spoofulated. Their Touriga-Syrah is also much oaked but is a nice savoury wine otherwise. It certainly is a winery to seek out, especially these two wines and their sumptous dessert made from FP.

• 2001 Pinhal da Torre Vinho Regional Ribatejano Ancestral - Portugal, Ribatejano, Vinho Regional Ribatejano (3/23/2006)
  Dark. Red berry scented, sweet but not jammy, earthy, a touch oaky but not overdone, screams Portugal at you. The palate is big but very savoury, fine fruit, fine earthyness, highish tannins and lots of almost Musar-like acidity. Smashing stuff! Not at all spoofulated like their Syrah and Touriga-Syrah.
• 2004 Quinta do Alqueve (Pinhal da Torre) Vinho Regional Ribatejano Fernão Pires - Portugal, Ribatejano, Vinho Regional Ribatejano (3/23/2006)
  A rather deep yellow. The nose is rather strange: salt/sea breeze, pine kernels, lots of minerals, white flowers and unripe mango. The palate has sweeter fruit than evident from the nose, with lovely ripe and almost juicy acidity, lots of minerals and a touch of salt. Great stuff and not at all like Retsina despite the whiff of pine kernel. (Unoaked, gladly.)

Posted from CellarTracker

Good stuff, Otto. I havent had many non-fortified Portuguese wines but it's on the short list of areas I want to explore soon.

Good stuff, Otto. I havent had many non-fortified Portuguese wines but it's on the short list of areas I want to explore soon.

Thats good to hear Bill. Check out wineanorak for all the news as well as the wine doctor.

Lesson #1 Bill.

How do we put in the "click here" thingy with reference to a website? i.e. http://www.wineanorak.com.

Here we go again. Thanks for the email by the way! Curling, check out the third on the USA team. I love freckles Bill, wherever they are &^%^%$#!!

[Robin Garr]

How do we put in the "click here" thingy with reference to a website? i.e. http://www.wineanorak.com

You just did it, Bob! Put in a web address including the www. (the http:// bit is optional), and the system automagically makes it a hotlink. Nothing could be easier!

The Fernão Pires is an unoaked white from an indigenous grape that doesn't seem to be much available as a varietal wine. I wonder why...this really appealed to me as an Albariño fan.

Agree with you about Fernão Pires - but we are seeing it more in UK supermarkets now. Also it is made as a varietal at least one winery in South Africa.

There will be many new red wines that are popular in Portugal that never make it to the US and UK markets. They will be emerging more and more as Portugal's reliability as a wine producing country become apparent to the wine consumers around the world.

By the way, I just had a 1995 Musar last weekend (4th bottle of it) and it was one of the top wines of the night, alongside some very stiff competition. I love older bottlings too, but this was drinking beautifully now.