Portugal Revisited Beyond Bairrada

Class transcript:

Welcome, welcome one and all. Happy Super Bowl Sunday to you all. Happy Puppy Bowl Sunday. Whatever bowl game you are celebrating at home, thank you for pre-gaming with Tail Up Goats Wine School. We are going to continue to fill time here as we always do with the first three minutes, which I think are the most riveting three minutes of wine school in their own way. Our very own Zoe Nystrom is here. Say hello to the people, Zoe. Hi, everyone. Welcome. Happy Sunday. Zoe, for the uninitiated, will be fielding questions, administering the chat, and just generally holding court from afar, drinking the wine. We are thrilled to have her back on this coast, it should be said. Zoe joining us from essentially across the street from our Rambler's Hour studio.

All the more thrilled. We are thrilled that we have some new listeners in the audience. Big ups to the going out gurus at the Washington Post. They interviewed us and wrote about us at length. And we have some new audience members for Tail Up Goats Wine School. We are grateful for all of you joining us, whether it is for the first time or for the 42nd. Love our wine school stands as well. But what a great day to spend a sunny afternoon. Thank you. It's become sunny here after our snow fizzled out. We are celebrating Portuguese wine. And we have three flights we are going to work our way through this afternoon. We're going to trace a narrative arc here. So people often ask, you know, which wine should I begin with?

You know, will the order in which I drink the wines, you know, ultimately affect the way I experience them? It absolutely will. But we tend not to get as worked up about that here. We like moving back and forth between individual wines. I always keep multiple glasses on hand. That's because, you know, I get wanderlust and I like to try a lot of things at once. But, you know, it is really illuminating to try wines one against the other. So if you have multiple glasses at home, I encourage you to break them out and to try one wine against another. I think they serve as dramatic foils really beautifully, especially when they come from the same genre, you know, red to red, white to white. What have you.

We are using kind of, we've got Riedel glasses here, very nice stemware, just, you know, for the uninitiated in terms of the things we look for in a glass. You know, we want a bowl that is sufficiently large to be filled with a four to five ounce pour. And you want the wine glass to be no more than a third full so you have sufficient space to aerate the wine because that aeration is gold. It makes the wine more expressive, allowing you to access more of the things that make the wine interesting, especially for the sake of this particular offering on the nose. You want something that's, you know, tapered at the top. So you want a glass that is, you know, thinner at the top than it is at its base.

But it's not necessary by any means to have different glasses for different wines. I love this multi-purpose glass, AP glass from the good people at Scott's Wiesel. You find one glass you like that's sufficiently versatile and you run with it. You know, don't feel like you don’t like it. You need, you know, a million different glasses for different wines. You know, you don’t need, for the sake of this lesson, a Duero wine glass, an Alentejo glass. You know, God forbid, a Colarish glass. You know, don’t, you know, be a sucker for the Riedel, Scott’s Wiesel marketing teams of the world. Just find one good glass and run with it. Whatever you do, though, please avoid at all costs the champagne flutes. Without further ado, let's kick it off here.

Zoe’s going to be administering the chat, so keep the questions coming over the course of the lesson. There are no poor questions, you know, only excellent questions here. We are thrilled to be with you this Super Bowl. We want to do a bit of shameless self-promotion to kick things off here. We have a YouTube channel. And, you know, I want to say that if you haven't subscribed already to the Tail Up Goat Wine School YouTube channel, please do so. I've been directing people to individual lessons in the course of my email responses. And I was particularly excited to discover this this week. So if you scroll down far enough on individual videos, then you access a YouTube kind of screen where they tell you what people are also watching.

So Tail Up Goat Wine School, you know, participants are also watching The Mechanic Who Lives in His Garage, Extreme Cheap Skates, Funniest Cats, Try Not to Hold Back Laughter, and Winnest Heiress Women Dating in Argentina. I think that's very exciting. So all of you at home clearly love Cheap Misanthropes, Funny Cats, and Latin Women. I can get behind all of those things. Good on you. Keep tuning in. Keep watching. Please subscribe. Incidentally, I watched that video; it is hugely entertaining. I highly recommend it to you all if you have time to scroll down far enough on the Tail Up Goat Wine School portal. But without further ado, we are going to kick it off as we are wanted to do with a bit of verse and naturally a Portuguese poem to kick things off.

There is just a breadth of amazing Portuguese verse out there. This comes from Portugal's great modernist. Fernando Pessoa, a man of many pseudonyms. He was a flâneur, someone that loved to wander the streets of Paris, of Lisbon, to watch the workaday urban milieu, to think deep thoughts, and to compose. The verse in it said; this is a poem called 'Mar Português', and it goes: 'O salty sea, so much of your salt is tears of Portugal.' Because we crossed you, so many mothers wept, so many sons prayed in vain. So many brides remained unmarried. That you might be ours, O sea. Was it worthwhile? All is worthwhile. When the spirit is not small. He who wants to go beyond the cape has to go beyond pain. God gave the sea, peril and abyss to humanity.

But it was in the sea that he mirrored heaven. Beautiful bit of verse there from Fernando Pessoa. Portugal, just a really gorgeous lyrical language. You know, not unlike Italian that way. Just a lot of amazing potential for a really beautiful rhyme scheme. And then there's a poem in its original Portuguese that has a really beautiful rhyme scheme that is next to impossible to properly capture in English. There we go. We're going to kick things off here with a short history of the Portuguese nation. And I think it's chiefly significant to understand Portugal. As a seafaring nation. As a nation at the western end of Europe. And a country that, you know, is informed by its proximity to the sea. And in the early modern era as its embrace of, by its embrace of exploration.

So the modern nation that we know as Portugal emerged out, first emerged out of the Reconquista, the 11th, 12th, 13th century. It is named after a Celtic. The Celtic port, the port of Calais. And it developed its own language. Heavily influenced by the Celts, actually. Much more so than Castilian Spain. It emerged out of the Reconquista and quickly developed an alliance with English, codified in the 1386 Treaty of Windsor. They have remained allies ever since. Which is one of the longest kind of diplomatic friendships in the world to date. The Portuguese and the English, their love of one another. And much wine flowed back and forth. Many English merchants have made a fortune in Portugal. And vice versa, many an Englishman has gotten drunk on Portuguese wine.

The Portuguese and the English competed throughout the age of exploration over, you know, overseas domains. But the Portuguese had the first leg up cheaply in the 14th century, beginning of the 14th century under Henry the Navigator. And they, you know, developed these trading posts all over the world. Fernando Pessoa, he name-dropped the Cape. It was actually the Cape of Bojador, which is in Morocco. And actually gives its name to one of our wines. That actually bears the poem, Mar Português, that I read you today. But we'll get to this a bit later when we consider the wines of Alentejo. And, you know, the Portuguese over time, you know, they had their sights set on these different, you know, kind of points. Points of embarkation, these different goalposts. Bojador was one of those.

And then eventually the Cape of Good Hope around South Africa. And then no one could hold them back. You know, they made their way to the Spice Islands. They made their way to the subcontinent. They made their way to Brazil. And they really ruled the world for the better part of a decade beginning in the 14th and the 15th century. But their fortunes waned thereafter, even if the colonies endured. But they established this, you know, long tradition early on of both making wine. In these outposts in the Atlantic. And being important traders of wine. So some of the most important early modern wine brands were Portuguese. Madeira, chief among them. Port. Carcavelos, which is lesser well-known in the modern era. Colaresque, again, which is lesser well-known in the modern era.

All in their own time were hugely famous, widely traded, celebrated by our founding fathers in the United States, among others. And certainly by, you know, the merchants and robber barons of the old world. Portugal, you know, had a somewhat tumultuous birth into, you know, the 19th and 20th century. You know, that said, you know, I want to emphasize that, you know, Portugal has this long history. But, you know, kind of a sad modern history. You know, encapsulated by Jancis Robinson, you know, a great English wine writer. Who said, you know, kind of summed up succinctly Portuguese history in the modern era. For much of the 20th century, Portugal turned her back on the outside world. And it's significant to understand that, you know, Portugal languished under dictatorship for the better part of the 20th century.

The D’Alva and I'm going to share a map here of different regions of Portugal. And Portugal, hugely fascinating, not least because for a relatively small country, hugely geographically diverse. You can see that, you know, we are. You know, seafaring people here, regardless of, you know, whether or not we are inland or not. You know, there is an oceanic influence, even if you're inland in a place like Alentejo. You know, and our orientation is very much to the Atlantic. And we do very much think of ourselves as, you know, you know, being in the shadow of the sea. And that informs, you know, our worldview and informs, you know, Portugal culinarily. In terms of, you know, the mackerel, the sardines, the salt cod that they continue to enjoy.

To this day, but Dow is a central region here. It was the birthplace of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. He was the dictator who in 1937 assumed control of Portugal and ruled for the better part of four decades thereafter. He came from a small winemaking family. His family, they were great growers in the Dow. And he, you know, chiefly kind of launched this. You know, kind of very ambitious economic project to consolidate the vineyards of Portugal and to run them through these massive co-ops. And he wanted to empower the farmers in that. But it led to Portugal becoming a bit of a wine lake. A bit of a backwards place for wine. They were making a lot of wine. They were drinking a lot of wine locally. But none of it, sadly, was wine worth exporting.

You know, that said, you know, the glory of, you know, this kind of sad. 20th century history is that Portugal never really adopted the grapes that caught on elsewhere. So, you know, your Cabernet Sauvignon, your Pinot Noirs, your Merlots of the world that took hold in a lot of other corners of the planet that had their own history of making wine. You know, they never invaded Portugal. Portugal did not, you know, kind of shed this authoritarian rule until 1974. 1976 finally becomes a democracy. Doesn't enter the European Union until 1986. And it wasn't until it joined the European Union that this long history of these massive cooperatives making tons of shitty wine, Mateus, Lancers, you know, all very effective international brands. But not, you know, fun drinking once you're past the point where you'll drink anything.

Once you're past the point where, you know, you're just happy to get your hands on wine, you know, you want to be drinking something else. And the Portuguese didn't really address that need until they joined the European Union. In 1986. And the EU sent a ton of money their way for the sake of modernizing these proud old vineyards that, you know, during the early modern era, in the 16th, 17th, 18th century, have produced some of the finest wines in Europe. So the Portuguese have spent, you know, the intervening decades since the mid-'80s kind of making up for lost time. And I love this quote from Jancis Robinson. Jancis, I've name dropped already. At some point we will get her on Wine Source. She is one of the, I think, the most profound wine writers of our era.

But she says about Portugal, which has become, you know, an amazingly popular destination for tourists and snowbirds. They're incentivizing, you know, all sorts of folks to come from around the world to buy property there and, you know, take on EU ownership. You know, I want to get in line for that. But she speaks to that here and says the recent touristic limelight. It's a new experience for most of Portugal, a seafaring nation whose wines and vines are as dominated by the Atlantic as its people have been for centuries. Deeply local and continuing traditions include indigenous grape varietals that have only recently properly been evaluated and exploited; they may still travel under a number of different names. International varietals never gained a foothold. So as well as oceanic freshness, Portuguese wine has a not-so-secret weapon, original flavors.

Original flavors, secret weapon. Look out, everybody. So I love that, you know, a little hokey, but, you know, a bit of prose there. We're going to kick things off and we're going to taste some wine because you've listened to me for the better part of 15 minutes. I hope that I haven't given you pause for the sake of, you know, starting to drink because you should drink whatever you want throughout, you know, this class, regardless of what you're talking about. But we're going to kick things off here. Thank you. Thanks for the show. Conferring us with a wine from the element of Portugal. It's famous corner of delivery. Books moves its way throughout northern Spain. On. It snakes its way through the northern corner of the country. 

And it carves its way, literally carves its way through this, you know, very hard schist and granite rock, which we're going to address more fully in a second for the sake of our first wine. And it empties out into the Atlantic at Porto. So it flows from east to west. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, 'You know', if you know, the wine, the most famous wine port, the fortified, sweet, largely red wine that comes from Portugal, from this corner of the world. Is, is, goes under the name of port, you know, you know, how did it, you know, you know, come to be that it actually hails from the Duero Valley? Well, in the, you know, ancient era, people tended to think about wine in terms of where it came from, you know, as far as the port of embarkation went.

So Porto was where the port lodges were, is where the wines were blended, and it was where the wines were shipped, even though the grapes came from the Duero Valley. So that's why port is port and not Duero. But for the Montes. So we have a modern dry wine, which became much more significant, much more popular around the world, once Portugal entered the EU in 1986, you know, for those modern dry wines, we tend to think more in terms of, you know, the designation of origin in the valley itself. And we're going to pull up a good, a valuable sub map for the sake of those sub regions. But let's taste this first wine. We have a white wine. It is called Shisto Illuminato. And that's not a very difficult one to translate, guys.

That is just 'unlimited schist.' So Luis Sabreia, a Seabra, rather, Luis Seabra, the winemaker, he made wine for New Port for many generations, one of the most famous port houses in the country. Unlimited schist, schist to the max, is our first one. I love this wine. It's a blend of a number of different Ninos. It's a blend of Portuguese grapes. And, you know, it is typical of Portugal, especially the Duero, that you're not going to see single varietal wines. Traditionally, port was a blend of a lot of different grapes. And, you know, they did that to hedge their bets from one vintage to the next, depending on how various grapes ripened. And they did that so, you know, different grapes could bring different qualities to result in blends.

So it was more like, you know, experiencing a choir as opposed to a gifted soloist. But without further ado, Zoe, who's a much better giver. Taster and explainer of wines than I am. You have this wine at home, Zoe. You know, you swirl it in glass, you taste it. This wine is aged 90% neutral oak, 10% in stainless steel. Hails from 30 to 45 plus year old vines. Beautiful kind of golden hue to it. What do you taste for the sake of this particular offering? I love how bright it is. All of that, like, lemon curd. It has, like, a little bit of, like, that ginger. Candy chew to it. And that crystallization, like, also makes my mouth, like, salivate. Same as those ginger candies.

I really enjoy that, like, yellow apple and all of those orchard fruits as well. And then, again, that, like, kiss of the feet. Little salinity. Little briny saltiness at the end is always welcome. Kind of balances out all of the fruit, too. Totally. This is one of those, like, Chablis eat your heart out wines for me. It tastes salty and chalky in a really fabulous way. We're going to give you the money shot here. You're on the Schist. This is Schist. This is Schist in the Duero. This is the local yellow Schist. They have yellow and blue Schist, for those of you playing along at home. They have kind of different qualities. The yellow Schist tends to be slightly softer than the blue Schist, which begs the question, what's the deal with Schist anyway?

Well, funny you should ask. Schist is a metamorphic rock. Bear with me. To be a wine nerd is, you know, concurrently to be a geology nerd. So, Schist is a fun one. Schist is a metamorphic rock. So, you've got three kinds of rock, for those of you playing along at home. Sedimentary, deposited by sediments. Shale is one of the most widely occurring sedimentary rocks in the world. Shale exists where you get deposits of layer upon layer, thin layer of mud over time. It's also called mudstone. And they get compacted. But shale is layered. And then, as shale metamorphoses, under heat and pressure, those layers get thinner and thinner, and harder and harder. And it goes through increasing metamorphism, more heat, more pressure. It develops into harder and harder rock.

First slate, then felite, then Schist, then gneiss. So, Schist is a very hard rock. And Schist is Schistus, which is to say it's layered. So, you know, it's layered. So, it has these cracks. And what is great about those, it's a very hard rock. These are very poor soils in the Douro Valley. There's, you know, barely any topsoil for the sake of these vines. And grapevines are amazing in their ability to thrive in nutrient-poor soils. And, you know, they love to wiggle their roots in the cracks between these layers. And, you know, it requires the schist to be oriented, you know, kind of, you know, in the right direction. You know, up and down, north and south. If you get, you know, Schistus bands that are located horizontally, then the roots have nothing, you know, to penetrate.

But in these, you know, kind of greatest vineyards of the Douro Valley, you get this kind of up and down oriented band of this yellow schist. And it gives these poor soils, but it gives these wines that are, you know, crisp and clean. Schist tends to give wines that actually are slightly fuller and fruited. They're actually slightly higher in pH. So the acid is a little lower. But by the same token, I think they have this, like, minerality because they are in this, like, very nutrient-poor environment. So we talked sometime about limestone soils in these classes. And limestone is very basic rock. Schist is very acidic rock and tends to give, you know, more basic wines. But concurrently, it tends to give these wines with this, like, bright, you know, chalky, acidic quality.

And then the other major type of soil in the Douro Valley is granite, which is an intrusive igneous rock. So that's to say that the igneous rock cools in the interior of the earth as opposed to the exterior. Granite has no bands. You know, it is just kind of a giant blob, giant mass. And it degrades into sand. It's very difficult for roots to penetrate. It hasn't already degraded. But, you know, somewhat counterintuitively, tends to give more soft, gentle, perfumey wines without the kind of structure that Schist has. And, you know, you'll see a lot of the greatest producers in this region working with, you know, different vineyard sites. We're working with a bunch of different grapes here. So this is a wine that embraces rabagato, predominantly, 50%, which is the cat's tail, for those of you keeping track at home.

Cadego Gobeo, which goes by the name Cadeo in Spain. Biosinto. And they each bring something different to the party. Rabagato is its full-fruitedness. Gobeo, lush as well. Biosinto Cadego, a little leaner, more mineral-driven. But the different sites, as well, bring something different to the wine. You know, the Schist sites, you know, bring more structure, more acid to the party. Whereas the granite sites, you know, bring more feminine perfume, more fruit, a slightly more delicate kind of wine. And, you know, the wine ends up itself being the, you know, kind of compilation of those parts. You know, you hope as a blender, as a winemaker, in this case, Luis Diabra, that the whole is greater than the sum of those parts. Now we're going to taste a red wine.

And, you know, I want you to, you know, obviously we're going from white to red. So there's going to be a huge distinction between, you know, how these wines taste, what grapes they're from, you know. And, you know, obviously Prima Fascia, you know, this is red, this is white. They couldn't be much, you know, more different. But try to look for that continuity. Try to suss out the Duero Valley in both these wines. Because they're both wines that don't really see a lick of new oak. This second one comes from Antonio Lopez Rivero. And I love the way he puts the vineyard site, you know, right on the label there. Because the Duero Valley is preposterously beautiful. These various terraces were carved out of the Duero Valley to make viticulture possible in the 18th century.

Preposterously steep sites. This is one of Antonio Lopez Rivero's vineyards in the Duero Valley. But this is somewhat unusual as a Duero Valley dry red wine. It doesn't see a lick of oak. So there's some purity to it. And I think it's fun to taste between these two to get a sense of how, you know, these schist granitic soils express between white and red grapes. But how there's some continuity in that expression. So what do you taste for the sake of these two wines? I've always loved Antonio Lopez. Like, this is the wine for everyone. I think that it can do so many things for so many people. It has that, like, nice, like, cherry being note to it. But it is still, like, chock full of really good, like, fine-graded tannins to it.

And then you have all of those, like, fresh herbs. So, I think it balances those lines very, very well. Whereas, like, The Prats goes, like, above and beyond. And you get all of that oak integration. And it's, like, very textbook and very stately, I guess. And then, you know, all of that new oak is incredibly visible. And I, like, I really want to eat more of a steak with it as opposed to the Antonio that I could sip on after dinner and be perfectly happy. Yeah. So Zoe jumped the gun a bit there. I'm sorry. Oh, it's okay. It's okay. She spoke. She talked up the Cressaea. Cressaea is kind of like the Screaming Eagle of the kind of Portuguese Duero Valley scene. It comes from Bruno Prats and the Symington family, led by Charles Symington.

These two books right here, Bruno Prats, the older gentleman, formerly ran the Rousseau Côte d'Asternel, which is one of the most famous second-gross in Bordeaux. Charles Symington, heir to the Symington family, the port empire founded by an enterprising Scotsman in 1882. The Crescea is from two separate vineyard sites in the Duero Valley, and they are in the subzone here. We didn't really get to the individual subzones for the sake of these particular offerings, but there are three of them. So this one's from Sima Cordo. You also have Sima Baixa and then the Duero Superior. This one kind of smack dab in the middle of the Duero Valley is the most kind of highly regarded of the Duero Valley subzones, but two different vineyard sites for the sake of the Crescea wine and kind of spoke to what I was addressing earlier.

So you see Pinão, which is in the center of Sima Cordo here, and one of the sites, so you have the Duero Valley running east-west, but you also have important vineyards. You have some vineyards along these northern tributaries. And they have a vineyard site along one of these northern tributaries that's actually a cooler site. It tends to give more delicate wines with a fuller fruitiness. And then they have a north-facing site on the south side of the river. And that north-facing, because you're in the northern hemisphere, tends to be a cooler site. They give more structured wines. But they are making this wine in a more modern style. So unlike Lopes Ribeiro, they're throwing a decent amount of new oak at this sucker. So this one is Triga Nacional dominant.

You've got this like Corey Haim, Corey, who was the other Corey, Zoe, in the 80s? Whatever, whoever the other Corey was. But Feldman, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman situation here. I think Corey Feldman would be like the Triga Nacional, the Cab Saab of the Portuguese wine world. Haim would be like the Triga Franco, which is like the Cabernet Franc of the Portuguese wine world. The Antonio Lopes Ribeiro we drank earlier is Cabernet Franc or Corey Haim dominant. The Crisea is Corey Feldman dominant. So Triga Nacional dominant here. And sees a shit ton of new oak, 15 months in 400 liter French Barrique. You know, you've got to let olive be olive. You know, the Bruno Prats of the world, they're just going to want to throw oak at things.

But, you know, I've said this once, I'll say it a thousand times. You know, some wines wear it better than others. You know, it's like the S Weekly who wore it best. And what I think is fun about trying these two Duero red wines is that you see two very different styles of winemaking in 2015. Same vintage for both these wines. But they both are really beautiful creatures. You know, I think they appeal to different sensibilities. They both have something profound to say about the Duero Valley. You know, but, you know, they're very different animals. You know, one more bombastic, one with more of a new oak influence for the sake of the Crisea. But, you know, and, you know, one more elegant, one more, you know, sinewy, one more acid-driven, you know, kind of briny for the sake of Antonio Lopez Ribeiro's wine.

But, you know, both God's children, both, you know, very, you know, kind of purely and evocatively expressive of, you know, what the Duero Valley has to offer for the sake of its dry wines. And, you know, the Duero has historically been the source of, you know, the world's most famous, one of the most famous, you know, fortified sweet wines for it. But, you know, in the modern era, you see the vignerons of the area really doubling down on these dry wines. And thinking more about, you know, what the individual vineyards have to offer. I like this quote from the Symington family. Paul Symington in particular says, you know, table wines, they have forced the port trade to see itself differently.

You know, when they were just shippers, it didn't make any sense to consider where the grapes came from because, you know, they weren't thinking in terms of, you know, vineyard design. Or, or, or, or typicity. You know, it was a profound change when the port shippers, when those port houses who were buying from a lot of different people, when they became growers themselves. You know, the wines changed and the way they thought about the region changed as well. And, you know, we are witnessing that transformation and benefiting from it as wine consumers here. Because these are two great wines that, you know, they're not inexpensive. You know, this is like 20, a $20 bottle. This is a hell of a, the Crise is fucking expensive. It's like 60, $70 bottle.

But, you know, they make a second wine that's like 30-ish dollars. That's, you know, very delightful in its own right. So, you know, you get great value in these wines as well in a way that you wouldn't in, you know, Bordeaux, where Bruno Praxis is from. Or where, you know, you know, a lot of, you know, people with the means to afford it can buy from. But, you know, Portugal is a great place to look for wine, you know, that is substantive, that does scratch that Napa cabbage. But, you know, comes to you for, you know. So that's a more reasonable workaday price. Zoe, questions. What do you have from the chatters today? Yeah, absolutely.

Since there are just so many students who are loving Mary Taylor everything, could you situate the Dorro Red from Mary Taylor with the Dorro Flight and how it compares to Antonio Lopez in the price in Symington? So that kind of compares favorably, or it's kind of comparable to the Lopez Rivero in my mind. You know, in the sense that I don't believe Mary Taylor's wine sees a lick of oak, which I think it is super cool. And so for the uninitiated, Mary Taylor is a friend of the restaurant and she operates as a négociant. So she is someone that purchases fruit from other growers. And she kind of bottles of wine under her own label. So all the labels, you know, they're very minimalist. They have this like beautiful script.

And what she does is brings wine to market that are, you know, wonderful expressions of place, but she's able to do so at a bargain based on price. So we carry her wine that is 60% Triga Nacional, 20% Triga Franca, and 20% Tincha Roriche, aka Tempranillo. And that one is harvested by hand. It is foot pressed in large granite lagartas, which we'll get to in a second because it's too fun not to. But the aging is entirely in stainless steel. So I think that, you know, something that Mary really values in her wines that, you know, we equally value and love is that freshness. So, you know, Portuguese wines in the modern era, the dry ones, you know, a lot of them, like the Créceas, are dominated by oak.

And, you know, again, you know, like us, we can wear it well, you know. But, you know, I think like, you know, the López Ribeiro offering, you know, it is nice to have something that is equally substantive and elegant. And, you know, the Duero Valley is a region that is going to produce a lot of freshness. It's going to produce full fruit in a wine almost uniformly. You know, they don't have to chase after that. And so I think sometimes if you don't do it, you know, you know, well, if you're not, you know, operating, you know, with a more delicate hand, oak can be overbearing. And, you know, it can be like gilding a lily. But, you know, I love that Mary brings this wine to market and there's an elegance about it.

And that is, I think, one of her best values, honestly. I name drop Lagarish. This is a Lagarish. So they're these ancient, they're either stone or cement in the modern era, fermentation vessels called Lagarish, Lagar, L-A-G-A-R. And this is a stock photo. But it was too amazing not to share with you all. And I love, like, the various levels of engagement in this picture. So, you know, you got this couple on the right. They're feeling the music. They are into it. They are all about stomping the grapes here. You know, the couple in the middle, you know, they seem variously engaged. You know, the, you know, the dude, you know, he's kind of, maybe he's thinking about, you know, his score of his, like, local football match.

You know, she, you know, is making eyes at the photographer. I love the couple on the left. You know, they're the one I identify with. This is my wife wondering, why the fuck are we stomping grapes? You know, we couldn't find a better use of our time on, you know, a Sunday afternoon. What the fuck are we doing here? That's the goal. But at any rate, this was honestly the way that wine was traditionally made, in the Dorero Valley. And a lot of wines are still stomped by feet. So there are still, like, you know, the Lucys of the world stomping grapes with feet in the Dorero. And actually, there's like a shortage of that labor. So often they'll invite visitors to stomp, you know, the grapes with their feet.

It kind of plays a role in port, too, fascinating enough. And I didn't know this until I was doing some digging for the sake of this lesson. But the, you know. The maceration fermentation process for port is actually very short. Because they cut it off. So port is what the Portuguese call the vino generoso. And we're going to taste another one of those in Carcaderos later. But generoso just means, in Portuguese, fortified. So they, it's a process, you know, that the French have adopted. And they just add spirit, typically brandy, to a wine before the fermentation is finished. Which means that a wine only gets to ferment for, you know, a period of days. You know. Four to five days. You know. But that four to five day window for red is tremendously important.

Because that's the window of time that you get to extract color and flavor from your grape skins. So you want to go about that if your, you know, maceration window is shorter very aggressively. And dancing on the grapes, you know, especially if you're, like, feeling the music. Or if it's, like, you know, like techno or, you know, or something that, you know, invites more steps. You know. It is a very extractive, a very violent way to extract, you know, those anthocyanins. All those pigments. All those flavor, you know, flavanols. All those other, you know, phenols. All those, like, really important, you know, chemical constituents that make red wine as enjoyable as it is. That make port as enjoyable as it is. You know. You are fast forwarding that process by stomping on the grapes.

So that's a big part of the reason why it's such an important part of the local culture. But they still do that to this day. And honestly, like, a lot of the wines that we're working with. I think these two are actually both This is definitely foot-stomped. A bunch of the ones we're doing later are foot-stomped. So, you know. Yeah. I mean, what's not fun about that? Beats. What else you got, Zoe? Kate asked an excellent question about how Torriga Nacional is one of the new seven grape varietals that's allowed in Bordeaux. Also, like, Alvarino is also allowed as of the new appellation rules. I was wondering what you thought. What do you think Torriga Nacional might taste like in Bordeaux? It scares me, Zoe.

So I think it makes sense to some extent because it's like, you know, Torriga is a late ripening grape that does well in sunnier climes than a lot of the Bordeaux varietals. If I was a French farmer, I'd be really pissed about it because I'm kind of old school about that stuff. And, you know, there are, you know, essentially six grapes that are supposed to go into Bordeaux. And we've lived with this recipe for, you know, a century and a half. So it's not the recipe is not as old as people would have you believe. But, you know, it's a it's a good recipe. You know, people are getting rich off this fucking recipe. And I don't think we need to abandon it that quickly.

The other thing, too, is that, like, they have grapes in Petit Bordeaux, which is actually pretty widely grown in Portugal, in Malbec, you know, that are pretty well-suited, you know, into not that are well-suited to thrive in a warmer world. I don't think they need to double down on other people's, you know, warm-weather grapes. You know, so I am, you know, highly, you know, I feel like it's it's a debasement of Bordeaux. But, you know, I'm playing the Andy Rooney role here as opposed to the more open-minded role. But, you know, I think more significantly, there are a lot of people looking at Triga National in places like Australia, warmer corners of California, places that experience a lot of drought, where they will need more heat resistant, drought resistant grapes.

As the as the right of way. And, you know, I don't want to, you know, you know, kind of call out the borderless for being more forward thinking about what will work in 2050, as opposed to what works now. What else? Yeah. Well, that's it for specific questions on the door. But I did want to just let everyone know since we also have some newcomers to put all questions in the chat so I'll be able to ask everything. Bill. So I'm irrationally excited for the next component of our instructional here. Zoe, because this allows me to indulge one of my favorite and great wine loves, which as longtime listeners will know is wine aged in clay. You got it. So we are bouncing from the Dão Valley to Alentejo, Alentejo.

So that basically the reason like the region encompassing the Tejo, which is a river that winds its way through this kind of central corner of Portugal. But it extends to the sea. But in terms of where they make wine, it's all these sub-regions: Borba, Porto Alegre, Redondo, Moura, Valleguera, Vidiguerra. And it is a hot, dusty corner of the country. And whereas historically in the Dwera Valley, you have a region that is defined by a lot of small parcels owned by many small businesses. Small growers. You've got larger estates in Alentejo. And cheaply, historically, you know, recent history, they are famous for cork enclosure. They're not famous for wine. It is a less historic region than Lisboa, which we'll kind of close things out with, and the Dwera Valley. They're better known for cork.

If you've never seen a cork tree denuded of its bark, this is what it looks like. I can remember the first time I looked at a picture like this. I was like, oh, dear God, they're stripping a tree of its dignity. It is a renewable resource. So this tree will produce another batch of cork in about seven years. And the harvest is strictly regulated. You will rarely, if ever, find a Portuguese wine bottle without a cork because it is such an important part of their kind of, you know, culture in the country. But equally beautiful. But Alentejo has these huge plantations. These massive estates. It is hotter, it is drier than the Douro Valley to the north. It's not uniformly hot and dry.

We're actually going to start with a wine from kind of a northern corner of the Alentejo. The first wine is a blend of both kinds of native varietal, Intriga National, which we tasted for the sake of our wine from the Dwera Valley, and three more kinds like broadly international. So we've got a blend here of Syrah Petit Verdot, which is historically a Bordeaux varietal, Cabernet Sauvignon, which is very much the Bordeaux varietal, and Intriga National. So Syrah Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Intriga National for one year, 70-30, split on New Oak, American and French. American and French Oak do different things. We're not going to dive down that rabbit hole today. Zoe, let's try this one out. How does this compare? How does this compare, in your mind, to the wines that we just tasted from the Dwera Valley?

And what's instructive about it? I think you're maybe wanting to talk about oceanic influence here, perhaps, if I'm trying to pick up what you're putting down. Well, I mean, it's from, you know, both oceanic and non-oceanic. So, you know, it is actually, you know, it's from inland. But, you know, there is an oceanic influence because you're in the northern corner of the Alentejo, as opposed to a more southerly one. For the sake of this particular wine. The soils are more limestone heavy, which is unique for this corner of Alentejo. It's in a region called Estremolch. We're going to pull up, we can pull up a dedicated map of Alentejo so you can get a sense exactly where we're at here. And I think we can identify, actually, this particular estate as I share a screen.

I hope this is as dynamic and enjoyable for you at home as it is for me here. But you got Estremolch here in Borba. And you can see here the unique estate, Dona Maria Vinos, just south of Estremolch here. Our other wine is going to be from further south as I scroll down from Herda de Rochim, which is right here in Bibiguera. And this northern region, it is a cooler climate than the southerly one. But it is, you know, warmer. Than most parts of the Doro Valley. Although there's quite a bit of variance within the Doro Valley, how does this wine compare to you to the one that you just tasted in the Cresia? And I'm going to pull up the bottle. So for those of you drinking at home, we're drinking the Dona Maria.

The Dona Maria here at the moment is the wine of the moment. Zoe, what do you taste for the sake of this one? I've always loved the Herda de Rochim. I love the fact of it. It has that, you know, olive oil on top to kind of stop it. You're spoiler alert, Zoe. You're totally spoiled. You stole my olive oil thunder. We're tasting the Dona Maria. What do you taste in the Dona Maria? I'm so sorry. I simply started with the white. My apologies. I really enjoy the Dona Maria. I thought it was really ethereal. I thought that it was really light and kind of savory. But you get those like really nice tannins to it. I have here just like capsaicin, capsaicin, capsaicin. All of those vegetables. It's super, super fresh.

And it like kind of reminds me of like Cab Franc in that way. Yeah. So that capsaicin squared thing, you know, is very much actually an American oak imprint. I said I wasn't going to talk about American oak, but American oak can do that. You know, new oak can do a lot of that as well. I just kind of like how bombastic the Dona Maria is. This is state historic. You saw a picture of it earlier. It was purchased by a, you know, pretty affluent Portuguese dude who sold his family's estate to the Rothschild family of Lafitte fame. And then he made this, you know, his next project thereafter, which is kind of nice work, if you can get it. So we're kind of tasting in reverse order here.

This would be the biggest of the bunch from the Alentejo region. And, you know, kind of, you know, some continuity coming off the wine from the Drero Valley that we tasted earlier. Moving on now to the Beaujolais d'Or. So you can talk about your olive oil here. Zoe. And this is wine in Anfora. So, Anfora alert. This is the winemaker. It should be said that both the Erdan de Rochim and the Beaujolais d'Or are made by the same beautiful man. I had the chance to travel in Georgia, the country, not the state, with Pedro Rivero. He's on the right here. That is his wife, Catarina Vieira, on the left. And it's her family that owns the land, another larger estate in Alentejo. Behind them, you see what's called Atala.

Atala is a clay vessel. The word itself comes from the Latin. And I'm going to quote here. We're going to talk about this vessel. So, this is the vessel in which the wine is aged. So we've gone from new oak barrels to this clay pot that dates from the Roman era. And we're in a forgotten corner of a forgotten country. So we talk about Portugal as being this place that, you know, time forgot for the sake of the, you know, development of Western Europe. Alentejo is a region that, you know, essentially Portugal forgot. So, you know, this tradition of making wine, which dates back to the Romans, survived there because, you know, nothing else took its place. And, you know, they're talking about the term tala. It comes from the Latin tinalia.

That refers to a large pot or vessel. They vary in porosity depending on the type of clay. But they're used for fermenting grape juice. They're used for storing olive oil. They come in a range of shapes and sizes. You know, and they rarely get as big as a typical wine tank would. But, you know, in this case you have a producer from the region, Pedro Rivera. He sees him as the safeguard of the traditional way of making wine in these vessels. And traditionally the grapes are destemmed. They're thrown into these vessels. Very often the stems will be thrown in separately. And the wine will ferment and it's punched down. You saw Pedro with that big stick. And he would punch down the cap on the wine. And, you know, the grapes would circulate.

And that would prevent, honestly, the wine from building up pressure and exploding out of the ceramic vessel. But after fermentation is finished, over the course of a week and a half to two weeks, that cap of skins and stems falls to the bottom of that clay pot. And then the wine is drawn out through the bottom after typically six months to a year of aging. Six months in the case of both of these wines. And that, you know, layer of skins and seeds acts as a natural filter for the wine. And I think it's really fun to have tried the wines from the Douro. To have tried this wine that comes from an estate that was named for a former mistress of a Portuguese king. And they're big. They're bold.

They're bombastic. They're oaky. They conform very, you know, kind of, you know, well to our image of Portuguese wine and wine from these warmer corners of the world in the modern era to come upon something like this. And it's just alien. It's wildly different. So it should be said Zoe stole my thunder on the olive oil after that fermentation is finished and the grape seeds and skins float to the bottom. They will coat a layer of oil on top of this wine because they have so much olive oil in Alentejo. They don't know what to do with it all. But also because it protects the wine from oxidation during this process. So I'm going to let Zoe talk you through tasting the Bojador and the Erdada Roisin.

These are made by the same winemaker, kind of under different labels. The Bojador owes its name to the cake that we referenced in that beautiful Pesal poem that kind of kicked things off with. You know, these wines for me, you know, I adore. They capture, you know, kind of the soul of Alentejo. But in this wonderful kind of, you know, sense that dates back to antiquity. So, you know, there's something primal, but, you know, you just sophisticated about both of them by the same stroke. Zoe, what do you taste in the red first and then the white? So the Bojador, the red is really, really soft, but also all that serrano pepper and very, very savory. I think that the fruit qualities are more like grilled. Or stewed.

They're certainly like soft and supple, but there's just, there's so much more going on there. I really enjoy the herbaceousness as well because it has that like eucalyptus, like minty leaf kind of a thing going on, which keeps it nice and fresh too. Whereas like the tannins and the texture of the wine is more chewy. And then that like really nice, like kind of sour acidity at the end, I think is delightful. I thought that it was going to be like too big of a wine the first time that I came across with it. But now that we've probably, this is probably maybe the third vintage that we've had to taste through of the Bojador. And I've really interested, I've been really interested to see how it developed.

I think at first I said that it was like a BFR and I like stereotyped it as that. And I've just constantly been shocked. Yeah, for me, it's gotten more and more refined and it's really cool to, you know, over time develop a relationship with a grower. You know, I love Pedro and, you know, he smokes like a chimney. I don't know how he tastes anything. But he has this very sophisticated palate. And his wines have gotten more and more refined. This has this like crazy smoked paprika thing. Like the Portuguese have this piri-piri pepper. You know, for those of you who have been to like the Nando's chicken, like, you know, it has this like wild, crazy red pepper thing happening. That's like hugely evocative for me. And sometimes equal Cab Franc.

But in this case, you know, it just feels like a, you know, Southern Mediterranean version of that. And then, you know, it's a loud wine on the nose. But then on the palate, you know, it's like so lean and savory and racy. You know, I love that dichotomy. And then you have a white wine. This is orange wine alert at home. So, you know, if it's Pee-wee's Playhouse, all the couches would be freaking out right now because they know we love white wine made on the skins. For the, you know, newbies, orange or amber wine is wine made from white grapes. But they leave the skins in the mix. So in this corner, Valentesio, for the vinos de tala. The wines made from these clay jars.

They make the red and the red wine is the same way. They leave the skins in the mix for the same amount of time. They add the same olive oil. We need to get some olive oil from Roisin. But so the texture of this wine is very different than the texture of a typical white wine. What do you love about the white, Zoe? Oh, steadfast. Baby's first orange wine. Super soft. Not astringent at all. Very, very bright. I like the little, like, hay. And straw. More like kernel notes that I got to it. There is that bit of depth. But I think that it's just like a very easy drinking, you know, there's a little bit of chalkiness. There's a little bit of seashore in there. But it's pretty straightforward.

Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, this is a wine for me that's always easy to underestimate. You know, I think it's kind of fun for those of you that did the flight to experience it having been poured out by four ounces. You know, it's kind of like a mini decanter. Those little, you know, glass jars. So this wine comes into its own. When you first taste it after you open a bottle, it's kind of lean. But as it opens up, you get a lot more of that fruit. And what is seductive about these wines for me is the way the texture, you know, tends to evolve. So, you know, most white wines, you know, they're crisp and clean. But, you know, texturally, you know, they have a little less to offer than reds.

This has the textural dimension of a red. But wrapped in this white, you know, envelope for the sake of the qualities of the fruit. And, you know, that offers all these opportunities for the sake of trying these wines with food that don't, you know, otherwise exist for the sake of more conventional white wines. What do you have in the way of questions, Zoe, from everyone in the mix today? Absolutely. Is it common for white wines to be foot-trotted or just the reds? That is an excellent question. I have no idea, Zoe. I don't know that. I don't know. I don't know. So, I do have one in Portugal. I have some hipster German buddies in Baden-Wu00f6rttemberg that tread their white wines with feet and actually sell it at the restaurant.

It's Mula Jurgau called Bunstein. And, you know, so there's no reason that you couldn't do that with a white wine. You know, treading something with your feet tends to be more extractive. You know, so you tend to get more of those like bitter, harsh flavors when you do that. So, you know, typically that's not something that you seek out for the sake of a white wine, so people would be less wanting to, you know, kind of work the grapes that way, but there's no reason that you can't, you know, there, there is no reason that, you know, if you're looking for more structure out of a white wine, you can't do that, and so it's not unheard of.

I know of no tradition of it in in this corner of the world, and it should be said that neither of these wines are made in Lagarish, so actually it's part of the codification of this designation of origin that they don't, by law, tread the grapes by foot. They de-stem the grapes, so they take them off the stems and crush them and throw them immediately into the clay jars, so they're no feet. This is a foot-free wine for those of you who are worried about your consumption of, you know, Portuguese, you know, foot microbiota over the course of this particular lesson. What else do you guys have? Oh, what's the difference between amphora and, like, the pupils that we were talking about for the Esperal? Um, in the, in the, sorry, the what?

In the Esperal. Um, so the, it should be said amphora is a very, um, narrow, um, classification for a particular, uh, um, uh, kind of Roman, uh, Greco-Roman vessel that has two handles and then a particular flared shape. U like an hourglass figure of sorts. Um, you know, uh, so, um, it's a very narrow, term, but, it's ascribed more broadly just to clay pots that contain things. So, um, in, in this case, uh, talla would be, you know, the, the proper designation. So you can see that's the shape of the vessel, um, uh, you know, actually, um, is, is, and, and I'll, I'll share a screen, um, for the sake of a, uh, you know, a proper, you know, room full of these vessels.

Um, that looks a little alien, you know, when you have a lot of amphora in a room, um, it, it gets a little, you know, shining Stephen King, um, for whatever reason, uh, but, uh, you know, these are a bunch of talla, in a cob in, in Portugal. Um, you know, but, uh, technically these are talla and not amphora. Um, uh, the term amphora refers to a specific Greco-Roman vessel, but it has become synonymous with just clay pots that are used, um, to, uh, and transport wine, um, you know, more broadly speaking. Uh, and, and, and, you know, in Portugal, in, in rather Georgia, um, kind of works the same way. So, you know, we'll say, you know, uh, you know, Georgian amphora, but, you know, coverage is kind of its, its own thing, um, you know, significantly.

Uh, what else you got? Yeah, there was a follow-up question of how these amphora are different from the Georgian coveries and then if they are both wax-lined or if that's just the Georgian coveries. Excellent, excellent question. So, I know that's, that's a killer question. So, um, the, uh, the Georgian ceramics, uh, typically are fired at a, um, lower temperature, um, so they're more porous. So, they have to be lined, um, typically it's beeswax resin, actually, um, and not, uh, beeswax, um, which I actually think is, is actually more impermeable, um, and, uh, so, uh, that's why beeswax on covevery, um, and the Portuguese talla, uh, generally, uh, fired at a higher temperature, so they are, um, uh, kind of, uh, impermeable, uh, that, that they're not as porous as the Georgian covevery, um, and furthermore, they're above ground, um, as opposed to buried in the womb of the earth,

um, and they're a lot easier to work with because you can just, like, uh, like tapping a keg, you kind of tap a talla, um, and actually there's a famous, um, uh, kind of festival, uh, so the, uh, I think it's Saint Morton, um, I have it somewhere in my notes here, but, uh, Saint Morton's festival, um, it's November 11th, um, which is, you know, uh, it is Saint Morton, so November 11th in Alentejo, uh, they tap the talla, um, and, you know, they draw the line out of the bottom, um, you know, if your amphora are buried, you don't really have that option, it's a lot more cumbersome to draw the line off, so I, I had myself thinking that, you know, uh, for a long time I was, you know, uh, indulging the notion of making wine and covevery, um, and I, you know, I, I, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I, you know, but, the lazy man in me thinks, you know, uh, I would much rather tap a talla, uh, than have to, uh, you know, uh, peel off the seal on the covevery and draw the line off that way, uh, so I'm going to come back for questions, I really want to, uh, uh, tackle these three wines because, um, they're equally delightful, um, and, uh, you know, we are going long on time, Thank you all for, um, you know, uh, resisting the urge to tune into Puppy Bowl, um, this long, uh, although there's a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, I think Jill Biden is making an appearance on, on Puppy Bowl later, I'm very excited about that, um, so we're going to tackle Lisboa now, so Lisboa, the region around Lisbon, um, and we're going to tackle these, like, really awesome historic wines, so, uh, the first one up, uh, is going to be this Castelau from Casa Figueira, uh, Figueira, uh, apologies for my Portuguese pronunciation from all of you, um, you know Joining us from home, we actually had a lot of honest-to-God Portuguese speakers, um, uh, native Portuguese joining us, um, and, uh, I hope you're keeping me honest, uh, at home for the sake of my, um, mispronunciations, but, um, this is a really kind of, like, bittersweet, um, uh, project, so Marta Suárez, the winemaker and artist, uh, her husband, Antonio Cabralo, um, passed away in 2009, uh, they fell in love because he rented warehouse space to make his wines north of Lisbon, uh, next to her, and she was inspired by his passion, um, to join the wine trade, um, and, uh, took up his banner, um, uh, made the wines, um, you know, after he passed away, so, uh, this comes from Castelau Vines, and, um, the kind of theme of this lesson is, is, uh, sandy soil, so we talked, uh, schist, granite, limestone briefly for the sake of the Dona Maria, here we're dealing with sand, we're dealing with own-rooted vines, so, uh, own-rooted is a whole nother lesson, but, uh, the idea, these are ungrafted vines, uh, most, uh, uh, grape vines are grafted onto different root stock, um, that is phylloxera resistant, these are grape vines that are on their own root stock, uh, which is very special, um, uh, these are 50 to 60 year old vines, Castelau is the grape, Which is one of the most widely grown grapes in Portugal that you don't hear a lot about. Um, it's kind of like Pinot. This is a wine that, uh, is aged on the stems and seeds, so this is whole cluster alert. Um, so they add the stems to the mix, and these whole cluster wines, they tend to have this, like, wonderfully herbaceous dimension to them. I adore this. Um, I have not had this before. Uh, we took on this particular class, I think it's, you know, fucking gorgeous. Um, uh, bottle. Zoe, thoughts about this particular offering?

Gorgeous, it is all of the stinky feet that, like, wet leather, um, it is very poopy, but in all of the best ways, um, I really like the quality of the fruit here as well, um, there is, like, a soured complexity to the fruit, but it's also very dry, and that's where I think that, like, um, Burgundians style goes in, although you and I both hate using that term sometimes, um, but it's just absolutely delicious. Yeah, so, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's really stunning, um, so she is, uh, in, uh, this, uh, village called, uh, Vemera, um, uh, there's a ridge of mountains, um, that kind of, uh, runs north to south, but it serves as, you know, um, a cooling influence for her vines, but, um, she is, uh, just north of, uh, Lisbon, uh, for the sake of this project, but for the sake of, you know, older vineyards, um, and, you know, it's all stainless steel, so really pure expression of, of Castellão, um, as such, but we're moving on now to Colares, um, which is this, you know, historically significant, um, uh, wine, uh, it's called the Bordeaux of, uh, Portugal, um, it is the ultimate, uh, beach wine, uh, Colares, um, and, uh, this one's a 1999, uh, so, uh, R.I.P. Prince, uh, but we're gonna party with them. You know, we're drink, drinking like it's 1999. The grape here is called Remisco, very much like Nebbiolo. These are own-rooted vines as well, planted essentially in a beach, so you see the sprawling vines here. Um, and you know, they have to dig down through the sand to plant on the um, you know, mother clay, and then they mound up the sand over it.

Um, uh, sand is extremely well-draining, and it tends to give wines that are even softer than the wines that you'll see on granite. Uh, tends to give wines, you know, that are, you know, plush and delicate. But Remisco is a grape that has this, like, crazy tannic dimension to it. Um, uh, you know, it's, it's high acid, high tannin. Um, and so it needs age, it needs the sandy soils to tame it. Um, and uh, this is a wine region that almost disappeared, um, so, you know, you went from hundreds of acres, thousands of acres under vine, uh, for the sake of this particular offering, you know, to, um, you know, mere hundreds, um, uh, in, uh, the modern era, um, and this comes from, uh, a, uh, kind of unique, um, and informative, uh, celebrant of, uh, this particular culture, um, in Palo de Silva, um, uh, a, a true, um, you know, kind of, uh, Portuguese wine, um, OG, uh, for, um, the sake of, uh, Antonio, uh, uh, Berardino here, he's well into his 90s, um, he is this, uh, uh, kind of, like, um, you know, uh, Kind of formative figure in Portuguese wine, um, in the history of Colarish, um, in the history of, um, kind of, uh, really being a standard bearer for a wine that was almost, uh, forgotten, almost swept off the earth, so you're close enough to Lisbon here that the land is, is more often, uh, valuable as, uh, you know, uh, kind of, uh, ex-urban resort than it is as vineyard, and it's very hard to work these, uh, windy vines.

You have to, you know, initially, after the fruit sets, you have to, you know, kind of prop up the fruit above the sand, uh, so that's not, you know, uh, too, um, you know, exposed, um, to, uh, the moisture that will, um, you know, kind of, uh, collect, uh, along, uh, the sand so the grapes don't rot. Um, it's a very much a passion project, uh, but, uh, Antonio, um, continued to beat that drum, um, and continued to uphold, um, you know, the tradition and has brought it into the modern world. And, you know, this is a wine that, you know, tastes, uh, like, um, you know, antiquity. It's, it's a wine that tastes stately and old-fashioned, um, in the best possible way, and you can see, you know, we're not literally along the beach.

You know, these are, uh, you know, rugged cliffs above the Atlantic, um, and then the vines are, are perched, um, you know, there, uh, above, but, you know, you have that waft of sea spray, you know, these low-slung fences, uh, protecting it, uh, from, you know, the, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the kind of, uh, from the sea, you know, and, you know, that's, that salt itself is poisonous, uh, to, uh, the vines, you know, yet in this, in spite of, you know, the very, uh, difficult, you know, marginal, uh, conditions, you know, the wine, uh, endures and survives, and you have something from 98 that's delicate, um, and elegant, uh, but persistent nonetheless.

Um, uh, what do you taste, uh, for the sake of this wine, Zoe, and do you have any people that are, are commenting on it? Uh, yeah, this wine is absolutely gorgeous. I love Palo de Silva. Um, thank you so much for bringing in all the whites and the reds of, of Palo de Silva over the few years. Um, I, I like how chunky it is. Um, I think that the um decayed fruit is also really beautiful. All of that potpourri, a little bit of um balsamic coming in um but not just a not just the tertiary notes but like you can really get I keep on saying the seashore but I guess it's kind of the point of this lesson but there's just like that niçoise like black olive brine in here and like a little bit of like caper juice and that may not seem delicious and scrumptious on its own but I don't know they all come together and and make this like brooding kind of earthier savory baby that I love Um so Zoe I never thought about juicing capers until you just mentioned it but now I kind of want to juice, juice juice capers but uh it is it is there um and you know I love that this is you know a wine that flies in the face of the notion that you know something has to be cartoonishly big to endure. You know, this is a delicate wine, um, that's savory, um, and, you know, racy, uh, but equally, uh, enduring at 12% alcohol, uh, which is a minor miracle.

Um, and then we're going to close out with, uh, Carcabellos. Um, I'm going to take more questions. I'd love to talk more about these, but, uh, Carcabellos is a fortified wine, so this is, um, uh, very much like Madeira. Um, it's one of, or a classic, uh, Vino Santa Rosa's from Portugal, the other one, uh, uh, uh, Sete de Val, which is, uh, from just south of here. So Sete de Val is, uh, uh, Malbasi, a floral wine from here, uh, from, from, like, the peninsula to the south of Lisboa, but we're in Carcabellos here. Um, it is a, uh, historically significant, uh, wine. Uh, it, um, uh, was widely traded, uh, amongst, um, you know, kind of the, uh, Euro aristocrats of the 18th, um, of the 19th and 19th century.

Um, it was one of the first, uh, wines, uh, that, uh, Sotheby's Auction House, um, uh, you know, kind of, uh, kicked off. It's, uh, sorry, Christie's Auction House. Like, I got that wrong. I'm sure, I'm sure Sotheby's Auction did as well, but, uh, Christie celebrated it in its, uh, first ever auction. Um, and, uh, TJ, uh, Thomas Jefferson, terrible businessman, uh, spent way too much money on wine, but, uh, had great taste and loved Carcabellos. But, uh, in the modern era, again, you're too close to a major metropolitan area, and people would rather look out on the sea than, uh, work the vines. So, uh, in this case, uh, you have Carcabellos that, um, encompasses, uh, dozens of acres, dozen of hectares, rather, um, uh, in this era.

But, um, it is nonetheless, you know, really, um, amazing in being in the midst of revival. Um, this particular estate, um, is the outgrowth of the work of, uh, Manuel de Poldoso, who sadly, um, you know, passed away within the last decade, but purchased it in 1963, spent the better part of several decades reviving the vineyards. It's a blend of Orinto, which is a hugely significant acid-driven, uh, Portuguese white varietal, Gallego, and, uh, Dorado, and, uh, so Gallego Dorado, and Retino. Um, but Orinto gives it that racy, uh, live quality. Uh, it's a wine that has spirit added, um, like port, uh, before it's finished fermentation that preserves some of the sugar, then aged at length, uh, in, uh, oak thereafter. This is 1989, great year for it.

It's a wine that's been around for a long time. It's a wine that's been around for music, a great year, um, for, um, Carcavelos, um, and, uh, really, really special stuff. Um, you know, I think this is a wine I want to eat cheese with. It's a wine I want to eat, um, you know, pork with, um, uh, hopefully some of, uh, you, you know, uh, you know, got in on the roast pork that we were offering, uh, for Super Bowl Sunday. I encourage you to save some of this wine, uh, to go along with it. Uh, Zoe, what do you get, uh, as far as tasting for the sake of this particular offering? I mean, I think this is why you and I, adore sherry and can go on and on and on about these things.

Like it's a little fortified. You get all that saltiness, all of that nuttiness. Clearly like this is its own and of itself. It's very different from sherry, of course, but like being able to put it into that category. Um, I think it's like very gastronomic and being able to, um, pair with really interesting foods like that chicken liver mousse. I think I would love, um, with this wine or even on its own, you know, that like Indian dessert, shahi tukra, um, it's like with all that little brown sugar, like in the honey, like this is like figgy pruniness. Um, I think it just evokes all of those types of, um, flavors and aromas and it's just, you know, gorgeous. I want to drink this for forever. Yeah.

The Portuguese do a lot of these, like, uh, kind of like richer tarts for dessert, like eggy tarts. And I feel like this is tailor-made for that. Uh, but I, I hear you, Zoe. I think equally a lot of Indian food would be, you know, absolutely banging with this stuff because it has that like exotic, you know, kind of baking spice quality, uh, to it as well. Um, so I'm going to toast out and then we have, I hope, uh, you know, some additional questions, uh, to field and I'm excited to, uh, field them. But, uh, I just want to thank you all for joining us, whether this is again, uh, lesson number 42 or lesson, uh, numero uno.

I wish I knew how to say that in Portuguese, but, um, you know, uh, Portugal, this land that time forgot, a series of wines that time forgot, but there is this wonderful nobility in that. And I think, you know, for those of us, um, you know, that, that live in places with, you know, a shorter memory. So, you know, on this side of the Atlantic, you know, we don't have, you know, that same sense of tradition. And then, you know, in places like, you know, Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Mosel Valley, you know, uh, they stayed continuously popular in a way that, you know, um, you know, constantly innovated, but didn't preserve, um, you know, these lessons from, uh, antiquity.

But, you know, I, I love, you know, this notion that, um, you know, we do, uh, have something to learn, uh, from, um, you know, these, you know, kind of, uh, uh, you know, time capsules, um, of the wine world. Uh, and Portugal very much, uh, embodies that, uh, for me. And, and I, um, you know, want to continue to drink the wines and continue to learn more about them and continue to celebrate them. So, uh, thank you for joining us all, uh, wherever you are drinking from alone together, uh, tonight, today, as always. Cheers. So, what do you got? Um, you alluded to this a little earlier, but I was wondering if you could elaborate about exactly how you take wine out of coves when they're buried underneath the earth.

This is, this is really good. Uh, so, um, great question. Uh, so typically, there are a lot of different ways to do it. Like, historically, honestly, they would have just kind of, like, ladled off. Uh, but in modern era, they just use a pump. Uh, most people, they'll just use a, a small pump, uh, to, to do so, um, uh, in, in most, in most wineries. Or you can, you can siphon as well. Um, but, uh, uh, usually just a small pump. Um, how popular in the world are sandy soil region, wine regions? Um, and then what are your other favorite sandy soil wine regions? I have to, um, I should have it on the tip of my tongue, but I don't. So, um, you know, there are, that's, that's, that's great.

That's great stuff. Um, I, I can't think of, you know, so the, this, like, Kalaris is uniquely sandy. It's like, you know, um, the beach is that way, you know, beach wine, sandy, um, in a way that a lot of other zones don't replicate. Um, you know, so, so sand is coarse, um, uh, and, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's very well draining. So sand will swap water. It's not water retentive at all in the way that, like, clay or silt are. Um, and that can be valuable in, in warmer corners of the world. I, I, I don't know, maybe I've been reading too much about Portugal today, and it's been, it's been a weird, it's been a, like, a strange weekend.

So I can't, I can't summon that off the top of my head, uh, in terms, I should, I should have, like, uh, I feel like, so do you have any, like, classic, like, sandy terroirs that you can think of off the top of your head? Because, um, I say, like, Greek, a lot of different, uh, oh, yeah, that's great. Yeah. So Santorini, or, well, I mean, but, but that, that qualifies as volcanic for me more than just sandy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so, you know, you have a lot of, like, really classic volcanic soils that are, um, that have a lot of same properties that sand does, uh, that sands do. But in terms of, like, you know, sandier soils, um, it does some, like, unique things, um, uh, in, in regions.

And so your maritime regions are, are very, um, you know, wet. And so to have sand that just sloughs water is very, very valuable for a plant in the great vine that doesn't like to have its feet wet. Um, you know, but I, I don't have a good answer. I, I promise to address that answer at length, uh, tomorrow when I kick myself for not saying, thinking of things. But, you know, there, there, there are quite a few. And, and a lot of it has to do with, like, how mother rock degrades. You know, so, um, you know, you think about the bedrock. We talked about gneiss. We talked about granite. But wine doesn't grow on gneiss or granite.

It grows on the topsoil that, like, eventually evolves from degraded gneiss because different rocks have different properties in terms of how they degrade. So, like, granite makes coarser sand. But gneiss, because it's, like, kind of flaky, makes smaller, kind of, uh, you know, clay and silt. Um, so, um, you know, I think of, you know, these, like, granitic soils that evolve into sand is, is producing these, like, lusher wines. Alsace has a lot of granite. Um, you know, a lot of other corners of the world do. But, um, you know, it's too late on Sunday. Um, and you, and I'm just, I'm just not firing on all cylinders. So, I apologize. But, uh, I, I promise to circle back to that question.

Yeah, I think there's, like, a few little places in, like, Chile and in Argentina that also have, like, 80 percent soil or sandy soils. But I, I'm not being able to, like, pull out specific regions. Um, there's also a few places in Australia as well, in Western Australia. Um, but again, I want to, I'm going to put a little pin in that and go research. Yeah, I mean, you know, in as much as, you know, you all, you know, ask questions, it is equally satisfying for us to, you know, close the loop, um, and think about things that we should have thought of that we didn't. Um, great question about, um, Portuguese wine tradition influences in all the places that they have colonized over the world.

Did they have as much of an impact as, like, France? Yeah, I think I think about that a lot because there's actually this really, really amazing corner of, uh, I mean, there are, like, these weird corners of, of the world that have, so, like, Boston randomly has this, like, huge Azorean, like, um, like, um, Azorean Island and, like, Cape Verde Island community. So, there's, like, good Portuguese food in, like, you know, in these, like, random enclaves of, like, Providence and Boston. And, you know, sadly, they didn't bring any wine with them. Um, uh, there's some, like, comparable, you know, enclaves, um, out West. Um, I think, like, pecan punch, you know, in, like, um, I think a cocktail tradition, rather, you know, out West. Um, but I don't think the Portuguese brought their grapes.

I'm, they, I'm sure they brought the grapes with them. They just didn't, um, they didn't, you know, take root the same way Italian grapes did. So, you know, in, throughout, you know, uh, Argentina, throughout, um, California, you see this, like, continuous line of Italian immigrant, you know, viticulture. Um, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, I can't think of areas where that has the same continuity, um, in the Portuguese-speaking world. Um, there is wine in Brazil. So, like, uh, uh, in, like, southern Brazil, um, uh, like Rio Grande do Sul, there's, like, uh, sparkling wine, but I don't know much about it. Um, and Portuguese, like, the Portuguese have this really fascinating relationship with Brazil.

So, like, one of the final, one of the last, you know, real kings of Portugal, kind of, like, gave up. He just, like, resigned, resigned his Portuguese, like, Portugal, you know, Portuguese, like, citizenship because he loved Brazil so much. Um, you know, and, and, I don't know, I don't, I love that about Portuguese and Brazilian history, but, like, um, you know, there are Portuguese grapes that have made their way throughout the Americas, um, but there's not the same continuity, um, you know, for the sake of those grapes surviving in the modern era as there is for the sake of Spanish grapes, in particular Italian grapes, um, and French varietals. Um, well, French varietals are more introduced, like, we didn't have a ton of unicorns, but Spanish and, and Spanish and Italian have survived, but, um, to the best of my knowledge, um, and again, I'll, I'll do more reading on it, uh, uh, less so Portuguese.

Absolutely. Um, do you think that you want to put just a feats wine category for Revelers Hour to get all of our foot trodden? Yeah, that sounds fun. So, we definitely, so, um, that sounds fun. We definitely have, like, an amphora, like, a wine and clay, like, a burgeoning, uh, section, um, and we've been talking about that a lot lately, like, you know, so what does clay give to a wine? And there is a definable signature for me that's, like, electric and savory. So, you know, clay tends to, um, amplify the, um, you know, the acid on a, on a wine and kind of diminish the fruit and, like, uh, plus one, the, like, briny, you know, you know, kind of quality of it.

And if you like that, I think there is this, like, um, familial resemblance in, you know, amphora clay age wines that's really seductive. Um, and, you know, I kind of intend to follow that to the ends of the earth, and I feel like one of my first big trips after, you know, a coronavirus lift is to visit, like, Luisa and to visit Pedro and, like, kind of, you know, you know, maybe tread some grapes with my feet, but also, like, see how they're working in amphora, because it's just, like, there's something seductive about this wine. I don't know what it is. It's just, like, it sinks its, it sinks its teeth into you, and you can't, you can't forget it.

You know, there's something, it just feels very alive to me, and alive in, like, a really awesome, like, not, like, you know, like, kind of mousy, natty way, and just, like, a very honest, like, you know, there's, you know, this life force to this wine, you know, it feels like a living, uh, in a way that, you know, is tremendously evocative and appealing, kind of way that I want to step into, uh, but, uh, as far as the foot trodden thing goes, I'll do, I'll do more digging. I fear that, you know, people will come into the wine store, and they'll just be, like, no more red, white, you know, you know, rosé, and it'll only be, like, clay, but it'll just be, like, a series of, of, like, categories, like American oak, a series of categories that are just, like, so confounding that people will come in, and those, like, immediately leave,

um, but hopefully we're able to, like, balance those, you know, impetuses in a way that will be, you know, kind of fun. Uh, well, let's bring it back to, like, a, to a different level of question, then, um, where does earthiness come from in wine? If it's made from fruit, if it's made from grapes, why doesn't it just taste like fruit? Well, I mean, that's a, that's a philosophical question, so, you know, why does something that is from, a grape taste ungrapey? Um, you know, that's the miracle of wine, so you have one, you know, singular vector in vitis vinifera, um, and it has all of these different multifaceted expressions that, you know, are very ungrapey, um, and, you know, that is, that's the, that's the glory, um, of it all, that is the mystery of, of it all, that is the rabbit hole to, to dive down, um, you know, the, um, the variability, you know, of this, you know, single, single creature, you know, I think that's what, you know, you come, come to love about it, um, you know, earthiness in particular, like minerality, um, which is a weird word to describe wine, like all those things, where, where did it, from whence do they derive? Um, you know, I think for those of us that love wine, um, they derive from place, they derive from the singularity of terroir, um, and, you know, we talked about that in the context of, you know, the Portuguese discovering, rediscovering port, so, you know, the, the, you know, port was a, a product, you know, and it was a blend of, um, you know, wines from a lot of these different small holders, and you had these huge houses, like Symington, that collected all these brands and shipped them down river, and then blended them and aged them in, um, this commercial center, uh, you know, on the southern end of the river in port, um, you know, but the rediscovering, you know, wines of place, and people like Antony, Antony Lopez-Rivero, he grew up among the wines, um, are rediscovering, you know, um, The through line from the vine to the bottle, um, and, you know, that's where, um, or it comes from, you know, at the, at the end of the day, you know, it's, it's in the purity of expression, it's in that, establishing that continuity between what you grow, and, you know, what you work at, and the hours that you invest in the vineyard, um, and, and transmitting that in the bottle, that is, you know, that's the secret sauce, you know, the people that do it well, you know, the people that are sufficiently attuned to it, you know, that's, that's what makes it all worthwhile, and, and, you know, it doesn't always exist, you know. in all wines, I, I think, you know, even for sake of wines, we, we, you know, taste it today, like, you know, the stuff that has more of a preponderant New Oak influence, like, especially, like, I love the Donna Maria, but I would struggle to identify that as, as Portuguese, you know, I think it's, I, I, it's good wine, and, it's just, it exists as good wine, and I think it's fun that it's from Portugal, but it doesn't necessarily, like, say Portugal to me, you know, whereas, like, I think the Lopez Rivero does have something to say about, you know, true, like, you know, the Corey Hayne, Corey, you know, Feldman, Portuguese, like, Triga Nacional, Franca blend thing, um, you know, and, and, you know, those are always the, you know, that's where I want to, you know, go, you know, the, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, the things that are, you know, fun for their own sake, and, like, could come from anywhere, like, they're great, like, they're, you know, they can be fun, but, you know, the, you know, the more, the, the, the ones you want to marry, you know, are the ones that, you know, you know, kind of actually have something to say about a particular, you know, designation of order.

What else you got? Well said. What's all I got for today? Any last minute questions? No? Well, um, uh, thank you for following us this far down the rabbit hole, all of you. I think the Super Bowl starts in, like, an hour or so. I hope you're all rooting against, uh, Tom Brady, um, although it did, it did strike me that we're, uh, embracing, uh, his wife's, uh, mother tongue, uh, for the sake of, of this particular lesson. Um, one of my favorite, uh, Tom Brady, uh, I think there's a lot of, like, uh, Chazelle saying he cannot throw the ball and catch the ball. Um, but, uh, at any rate, uh, we're thrilled to have you all with us. Um, and, uh, you know, irrationally excited that, uh, uh, we had a whole bunch of, of first-timers in the mix. Um, if you are joining us for the first time and, and managed to hang on, uh, this long, uh, we promise you there are, um, you know, an infinite, uh, array of rabbit holes to fall down. Um, I'll have a new, uh, invitation, uh, coming your way, um, uh, on Tuesday and, uh, look forward to doing it all again, uh, for a good cause, uh, next Sunday. So, solid.