Quinta do Fojo Wines

Text José Silva

In a country environment, in the open Pinhão river valley, with vineyards everywhere, a vertical tasting of Quinta do Fojo wines took place. Access to the farm is difficult and we did the final part on foot, better admiring the beauty of the farm and of the rural house. The house was built for the owners to follow harvest time, very well integrated in the landscape, with very interesting details, that have been maintained and protected.

The surrounding trees are the natural link with the vineyards that encircle the house, with a huge yard in the middle, to enjoy summer meals, as was the case, or to enjoy a glass of wine at the end of the afternoon in contemplation of the Douro sunset.

After the short walk, we took our place at the table for the first vertical tasting of the Quinta do Fojo wines. And through our glasses marched the existing vintages till now:

Vinha do Fojo 1996
In a year of great production, there were very interesting wines, like this one. Light red, clean, refined and sophisticated in the nose, scented, beautiful acidity, still some red fruits, dry.

Fojo 1996
Although from the same year, it has got a different attitude, light red color with brown spots, more closed, although refined and scented. Full, wonderful structure, great volume, good tannins, a lot of ripe red fruit, long, very good.

Fojo 1998
In a different year, a different wine. Light red, refined, fantastic nose, sophisticated, even scented and with some spices, fascinating.
Involving, with vibrant acidity, delicious tannins and wonderful red fruit, slightly dry. Enormous final…

Fojo 1999
In a difficult year, a very interesting wine. Light red with brown spots, refined nose, though a little bit closed, but sophisticated. Well balanced acidity, a little bit dry, persistent tannins, complex, fleshy, with a long final.

Fojo 2000
A year with very good wines, it is intense light red, still closed in the nose, deep, sophisticated, very refined. Round but dry, powerful tannins giving it structure, still very fresh red fruit, excellent acidity in a very young wine, to last some more years.

Fojo 2001
The first year of the millennium reveals great wines like this. Light red, refined, intense in the nose, full, a lot of red fruit. Refined and with beautiful structure in the mouth, safe tannins, fantastic acidity, still a lot of red fruit, fleshy, great final.

Lunch was then served, in the company of all of the six wines tasted, which allowed us to do a variety of matches and understand the performance of each one of them, now with company. The wines are very gastronomic and healthy, they will evolve for many years. Safe, with obvious profile, the differences come only from the influence of the different years. Prepared with grapes from the old Fojo vineyards, they are a good investment as wines to keep and fortunately, all of them are still available.

Douro at its best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since the beginning of the Quinta do Fojo wine project, winemaking was lead by winemaker and a good friend, David Baverstock. Only in the 2001 harvest he was not there anymore.

Meanwhile there has been a breakdown in the production of these wines, an option of the producer, but we guess they will return soon, now with the help of winemaker Rita Marques, a truthful fan of the Fojo wines. Together with the owner, Margarida Serôdio Borges, it’s a new pair of women dealing cards in an excellent Douro wine production.

Old vineyards will still be there, producing wonderful grapes for Fojo wines…

Through the Land of Baião

Text José Silva

Imbedded in the demarcated region of vinho verde, Baião is a mountain village, on top of Aboboreira mountain, where gastronomy still has got a lot of tradition, alongside the excellency of many wines, between whites, rosés and some reds. In a recent visit to that region, our resting place was the natural beauty of Quinta da Covela, breathing that pure air, with peacefulness and wonderful wines.

The place is very beautiful, now with the vineyards full of grapes and orange and lemon trees full of fruit, although it is already late summer, with tasty and sweet oranges and juicy and fragrant lemons.

Close by, a dense wood is a natural protection for a biological method of production with great results. Walking through the property is charming and at the same time refreshing, with all that tranquility and a great variety of plants, from the vineyards to the orange trees, but also a huge cherry tree plantation, and many other kinds of fruit trees and many other plants and leafy trees that are a natural frame for the beauty of the property.

The main house, in hard granite and embraced by ivy and other shrubs that make it look comfortable and cozy, is very well placed and has got two wide terraces, with different sun exposure , that are used to enjoy many meals served there during the year. In front of the house, a small cellar, where a great part of the wines produced there, are ageing.

Further below, a nice swimming-pool is a good way to refresh ourselves during the intense summer heat.

Wines from Covela have been accepted not only in the region, but also in the whole country, also because they are very gastronomic wines, making wonderful pairings with a variety of Portuguese food and also with food from other regions, most of all Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Indian. These are wines with great structure, very fresh and with wonderful acidity, joined by a floral flavor, in some of them, and fruitiness, in others, in sets full of harmony and refinement.

Covela Edição Nacional Arinto 2013 is good news. A fresh wine, with plenty of minerality in the mouth; dry, wonderful acidity; young and refined. Covela Edição Nacional Avesso 2013 is still at a great level, from a year with great white wines, with intense citric notes, slightly mineral, well balanced but very present acidity, very refined.

Covela Rosé is impressing, at the same time refined and complex, with red fruit notes and some floral perfume, wonderful acidity and slight minerality, a gastronomic wine with a great final.

At last Covela Escolha, a white wine with great body and structure, refined and gently floral, great acidity, some white fruit pulp, slightly mineral, with great final in the mouth. A wine to last for years.

[Come read our previous article about Quinta da Covela.]

At night we chose to eat close by, at a new space that belongs to a traditional surrounding full of history. The new “Tormes” Restaurant, in the complex of “Eça de Queiróz” Foundation a property that once belonged to the famous Portuguese writer and where some of his remains are resting. So, there is now a nice restaurant, using the facilities with beautiful granite walls and wood ceiling. There is a bigger room for group services, very well equipped. In the restaurant, tables are very well dressed and there is even an old piano that belonged to the writer.

In his romances he mentioned many of the dishes he loved, or, at least, the characters did. . In this restaurant, with great table service, the menu tries to reproduce many of the recipes Eça mentioned in his books. To the table come bread and corn bread and smoked ham with melon, as a first starter. Also peixinhos da horta are there, delicious salted mushrooms, fleshy and tasty, and fantastically grilled small pork slices with wine and garlic.

As first course we tasted fricassee squids, in the company of salted potatoes with its skin and a simple salad on toast of regional bread with olive oil, garlic and salt. Then we had the Alcantara Monastry partridge, a classic from Queiróz culture, very rosy, with lots of carrots and salted potatoes, delicious. At last we had a mixed dessert, with pineapple, egg truss and crème caramel.

So strong!! During the meal we tasted two white wines from the Foundation, first of all a Regional Minho Wine 2013, simple but pleasant, fresh, great acidity and some fruit on the nose; then a Tormes Escolha, very well dressed, greater body, still very fresh and with good acidity, dry, complex, a refined wine. Both went very well with the meal, in an interesting “cheek to cheek”.

Back to Covela, for the last night in the company of that deep silence, good for your body, we remembered Eça de Queiróz and we could understand why he loved this region so much In a letter to his wife, when he first visited Tormes, in May 1892, he writes: “The property…is excellent…and so fertile that it almost doesn´t need fertilizers…It is all on terraces…The mountain goes down to the Douro…What climbs up and what goes down is all wonderful in vegetation, in green, in water, in shadows, in good sightseeing…”
See you next time, Baião…

Contacts
Quinta de Covela
William Smith & Lima Lda.
S. Tomé de Covelas
4640-211 BAIÃO
Tel: (+351) 254 886 298
E-Mail: info@covela.pt
Site: www.covela.pt

Fundação Eça de Queiróz
Restaurante Tormes
Caminho de Jacinto, 3110
Quinta de Tormes – Baião
4640-424 Santa Cruz do Douro
Tel: (+351) 254 882 120
Fax: (+351) 254 885 205
E-mail: info@feq.pt
Site: www.feq.pt

“Taste in Adegas”, The Wines of Pico

Text José Silva

Pico is a charming island, one of the nine islands of the Azores archipelago. With a volcanic origin, everywhere you can see those brown and black rocks, revealing its origins in the volcanic eruptions that happened there thousands of millions of years ago. Those rocks are used for many purposes, including house building, and for those low walls that shape a great part of the island’s landscape, that are used to grow fig trees and vineyards. So, the small brick walls protect the plants from the strong, sometimes even salty, winds, and concentrate the heat during the day, that way, at night, they keep a stable temperature for the plants.

These structures, unique and of great landscape beauty, the result of human work, and known as “currais” or “curraletas”, were in 2004, classified as human heritage. And they are, along with whale watching, the wines of Pico and the excellent local food, a set that appeals and brings more and more people to the island. And that has also got, as a natural billboard, the majestic Pico Mountain an old volcano 2.350 meters high, the highest mountain in Portugal.

Wines from Pico are even better, nowadays applying modern technology and much better work in the vineyards, but keeping them very typical, using local grape varieties. Mainly white wines, very fresh and mineral, with a fantastic acidity as well, but also some reds that already show themselves very interesting. And also sweet wines, a great tradition in Pico, today more polite and modern, very good.

But in Pico there is a great tradition, now open to the public in general and specially to tourism, which is visiting the small cellars. There, the owners are used to receiving friends and guests to taste the wines and traditional food, mainly the tasty fish broth, which is really a fish stew, but without potato, which will be boiled and served separately. A variety of fish is boiled with some spices, a part of the broth is going to soak into thick slices of traditional bread, and boiled potatoes are served separately as well as the traditional vilão (villain) sauce.
Then, in tiny cups, the fish broth is served, very hot. As dessert we enjoy a traditional ring-shape cookie, slightly sweet, Pico cheese, still with fish broth for company.

Nowadays, many of those wine producers are receiving visitors in their small wine cellars, for a nice price, showing them the beauty of the buildings, the greater part still with no electricity. And they offer their wines and their tidbits for visitors to taste. Once a year, with the regional government’s support, “Taste in Adegas” takes place, organized by Adeliaçor, with the partnership of the Hotel and Touristic School of S. Miguel, and the goal is to show those small wine cellars and let tourists enjoy a tradition that they don’t want to lose.

Wines from Pico have been improving more and more each year, with white wines at a great level now, where freshness and acidity are highlighted , full of refinement but with character and each one’s personality.

And even names not so well known as “Curraleta”, “Buraca” or “Cancela do Porco” have revealed themselves wonderful and, most of all, gastronomic, doing great pairings with most traditional dishes of the island, as grilled limpets, octopus stew, the excellency of grilled tuna, cellars fish broth, Portuguese steak and chops of irreprehensible cow meat and, of course, Azorean pineapple, unique in the world, but also some more refined dishes made with regional products, like “veja” tartar and cold beetroot soup, or pecan crusty lily and mushroom ragout.

Fortified wines from Pico, “Lajido” and “Czar”, are always at a great level, now with the company of a wonderful “Curral Atlantis”, wines with great refinement, smooth citric aromas well balanced, honey notes and that vibrant acidity that makes them desirable and that matches very well with a variety of desserts and even with the excellency of the Azorean pineapple.

It was a visit where we discovered the new reality of the Pico Island and the Azores in general, with modern tourism for those in search of paradisiac places with awesome landscapes and a fabulous and rich sea, in a destiny with great ecologic quality, thanks to a nice work to preserve the patrimony and cultural values. From which, wine production is one of the most important parts, with international recognition.
We hope to return there next year.

Contacts
Rua do Pasteleiro s/n
Angústias
9900-069 Horta
Tel: 292 200 360
Mobile: 913 397 808
Email: adeliacor@sapo.pt
Site: www.adeliacor.org

L´And Vineyards, a hotel dedicated to the cult of wine…

Text José Silva

Situated very close to Montemor-o-Novo, in the open Alentejo, this hotel is much more than that. Bathed by the typical landscape of Alentejo, benefiting from that quietness, that peace, it is a very modern hotel that has been developing, almost for three years now, a new concept, where wine production is an integral part of the whole unit. In the central building are all the services that L’And can offer: restaurant, living rooms and spa that includes a swimming pool, and a nice swimming pool on the outside.

And, under this building is, imagine, the cellar. But it is a small cellar, with very small stainless steel tanks, a lilliputian version of the Alentejo cellars. In charge is Paulo Laureano, a winemaker with great experience, who accepted this challenge. Outside, in front of the building are the vineyards, but there are also vineyards just besides the swimming pool, next to the first hotel suites. They are only two level buildings, as are all the others, in an environmental integration that was a great concern of the owners from the beginning.

An artificial lake is there only to keep the water to irrigate the vast lawn and, when it is the time, the vineyards. Although cars can park near the suites, the hotel personnel always rides in electrical buggies all around the property. There we cannot find the traditional hotel rooms, but suites with at least two bedrooms, with huge living rooms, full of light and very well equipped, with mini-bar, Nexpresso coffee machine, tv with all the available channels, video and Iphone and Ipod support, air conditioning and an completely private interior yard.

There are even straw hats, which can be very useful, I would say even fundamental, to face the energy of the Alentejo sun. Outside each suite there is a nice fireplace, where you may light a fire to be outside, at night. There are also some villas that were sold to private persons, but that are part of the entire compound, even benefiting from some of its services. It is a place to rest and have some wonderful walks, but that is still very near to Montemor-o-Novo, with all you may need easy to find.

In the spa, as in all the suites, they use Caudalie beauty care products, prepared with grapes and wine, and a variety of applications, massages and wine therapy treatments proposed by the spa, with nice results. But the body has to be well treated also on the inside, and there is an excellent restaurant, where every morning a full breakfast is served. Although it is closed Monday and Tuesday, the restaurant has got a wonderful service, tables very well dressed and professionals that look after every little detail, and that includes the service of a sommelier, who proposes appealing trips to our wine world.

And those are the support of a menu prepared each day by Chef Miguel Laffan´s team that has got great experience and good taste that got them in 2013 the assignment of a star in the renowned Michelin guide, as a matter of fact well-deserved. It´s the search for soft and sophisticated tastes and textures where they use continuously genuine Portuguese products, with brilliant results, and that bring many visitors there, with a high percentage of Portuguese that are giving more and more value to our products, our wine and our professionals.

The tasting menu that we shared is a good solution to taste starters, fish, meat and dessert, to which you can add many wines served by the glass. We began to nibble on caramelized almonds with curry, till a delicious fish from the vicentina coast soup arrived, with roasted crayfish and creamy oyster croquette, followed by the tuna tataki in millefeuille, purple onion jam and mango chutney and horseradish, coriander, bergamot and wasabi salad.

Also a delicious red mullet on the stove with cockle bread panada, salted squid and fish stew and crispy salad.

Then the meat arrived with pork loin from Alentejo, roasted slowly, texturized cauliflower gratin with salted asparagus, pea and regional black pudding, a party to our taste.

For desserts we tasted pistachio tiramisu with white chocolate and glacé cherry, coffee ice cream and crispy tainori chocolate, to end with a carrot duet on pistachio earth with saffron foam and ginger and honey ice cream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proposed wines were white sparkling from Herdade do Esporão, very elegant, soft but with persistent bubble and creamy string, the two grapes from the same producer, with Roupeiro and Arinto, from 2012, fresh, very elegant, wonderful acidity and some evolution, excellent wine.

Then came the red from L’And Vineyards Reserva 2010, plain structure, round, pretty much elegant bouquet, velvety but with the strength of red fruit, tannins well connected, a wine to remember. For desserts the sommelier proposed a Port Wine White Reserva Rozès and the Grandjó 2008 Late Harvest, and he proposed very well.

Served at the right temperature and glasses, they were the excellent epilogue for a wonderful meal in this L´And Vineyards.

Contacts
L´And Vineyards
Estrada Nacional 4
Herdade das Valadas
Apartado 122
7050-031 Montemor-o-Novo
Évora
Tel: (+351) 266 242 400
Fax: (+351) 266 242 401
E-mail: reservas@l-and.com or info@l-and.com
Site: l-andvineyards.com

Ideal Drinks – Belcanto

Text José Silva

Ideal Drinks is a company that has gotten us used to a superior quality level, with a careful image, modern and effective communication. They also like to round all this up with a surprise factor, which is also proof of the dynamics they put in everything they do. And what they do are, above all, extraordinary wines!

That’s why we went to Lisbon, specifically to Chiado, where Lucas’s team presented some new things, this time in the very new chef José Avilez’s place, that he called “Mini Bar”, there at António Maria Cardoso street, right in Chiado´s center. It is a British style bar where you can enjoy a great variety of drinks and where you can taste some tibits with chef José Avilez’s mark. It was right there that three new Ideal Drinks´s wines were presented: Colinas 2009 white, a refined wine from Bairrada, with fantastic nose, dense and charming, creamy in the mouth, great volume, almost smoked, very good acidity, silky and delicate.

The first red was Principal Reserva 2010, an international red always very well made, with touriga nacional, cabernet sauvignon and merlot, intense on the nose but at the same time refined, with mature fruit, full structured mouth, some intensity, well balanced acidity, thin and very well integrated tannins and a long and persistent final.

At last, the novelty of the night, a world première, Quinta da Curia 2010, an extraordinary red wine made with grapes from a single vineyard located in Curia, with touriga nacional, cabernet sauvignon and syrah, a red wine with matured red fruit aromas, some floral, slightly mentholated, very delicate and refined, very intense mouth, silky, smoke notes, red fruit, wonderful acidity and very fresh in a wine with volume, thick, a red wine with pedigree.

They are relatively expensive wines but whose target is in countries with more acquisition power and with clientele that appreciates different things. As Lucas presented these new wines, chef José Avilez served small delicacies with his signature: caipirinha in an icy sphere form, that bursts in the mouth and spreads caipirinha´s taste, explosive olives that you smash into the palate and dominate it with olive taste, and Ferrero Rocher, that looks like it but indeed it´s a divine foie gras sphere, or even the Algarve ceviche shrimps, almost raw, served on top of half a lime, followed by the tuna tartare temaki corneto with spicy soy and some salted scallops with Thai flavours.

But it was dinner time, and we left the bar to walk the small circuit that leads to Belcanto restaurant, where the complete meal was served. A good eating place, very well dressed, where wood is the dominant note, with two rooms separated by a small corridor that forces us to look into the open kitchen, where chef Avilez´s team improves so that nothing fails. And it never does!

Refined, very well dressed tables, and professional service, faultless, well commanded, nice, always present, as it should be. After the chef´s welcome, the meal started, with sparkling wine Colinas Brut Rosé 2009, served at the right temperature, great refinement, at the same time as delicious olive bread was served and three wonderful spherical butters: traditional butter from Azores, smoked butter and nuts butter.

Principal Rosé 2010 was already served when smoked mackerel marinade came, in a delicious miscellany of aromas and flavors, the fish’s smoke pairing very well with the vinegar of the marinade, and perfectly pairing with the wine, a good choice. And Eminência Loureiro 2012 white wine was already in the glass, a very well known wine from this house, when the “cozido à portuguesa” came, an incitement from the chef, a false “cozido” prepared with baby vegetables, where you could recognize the turnip flavor and some fat pork, giving the set texture and intense flavor.

It was then that reds were served, in first place Principal Reserva 2010, that we had already tasted and that went very well with the dish. Another dish followed, codfish “pataniscas”, tomato pulp and coriander “samos”, a complex but very well achieved set, the “pataniscas” happened to be very good codfish fillets, soft and tasty, the tomato pulp pairing very well with the jelly structure of the “samos”, very, very good.

Quinta da Curia 2010 was a good fellow for the suckling pig, with its structure, but most of all its acidity, perfect. Revisited suckling pig was divine, with the partnership of a thin orange purée, lettuce leaves block and a small bag that looked like plastic but that was meant to be eaten, with citrine flavors and some small fried potatoes inside, tasty and crispy.

The suckling pig portion, thin, crispy skin, was very well spiced, it remembered its Bairrada traditional version. We finished with dessert at chef Avilez style, a refined set of sweet eggs and citrines, in a delicious color palette, that was very intense in the mouth. Very good! That paired with the last wine of the night, sparkling Colinas Brut Reserva 2010, silky, intense, creamy in the mouth, with excellent acidity, dry and refined.

Wonderful meal, in very good company, in a leading restaurant. No wonder it has got a star from the influential “Michelin Guide”.
Out there, the night was mild, inviting for a walk through the city of Lisbon.

Contacts:
Ideal Drinks, S.A.
Quinta do Seminário, Casais
P-3045-161 Coimbra
Phone: +351 231 528 312
Email: geral@idealdrinks.com
Site: www.idealdrinks.com

Belcanto
Largo de São Carlos, 10
1200-410 Lisboa
Phone: +351 213 420 607
Site: belcanto.pt

Restaurant G, at Pousada of St. Bartolomeo, Bragança

Text José Silva

One of the most interesting motives for those of us who share this activity of gastronomy and wine is, now and then, to find things that can surprise us and make us happy. It is also one of the reasons why we keep up the will and pleasure to go on and develop this work. That´s what happened in a recent visit to Bragança, much in the interior of Trás-os-Montes, when a friendly hand took me to the Pousada of Saint Bartolomeo, to have lunch.

The Pousada has got a great tradition, that I know very well, as I slept there many times, visiting Bragança, but the big surprise is that the “Geadas” group, that owns the restaurant with the same name in Bragança, assumed the administration. For several decades restaurant “Geadas” has been the best known place to eat in town, supervised by two brothers, serving traditional Trás-os-Montes food. However, in the last years, they developed an alternative creative menu, based on Trás-os-Montes products. Now, with this acquisition, the two brothers decided to transfer this creative concept to the pousada´s restaurant, that they simply called “G”.

Photo by José Silva | All Rights Reserved

The place has been reorganized, it is now more comfortable and cozy, with a refined offer, based on regional products, that we praise. Room full of light, with a view over town from above, preceded by a living room, where you can see some regional products, like olive oil, smoked sausages and sweets. Tables very well set, with everything good on top, irreprehensible service, including wine service, performed by personnel with great experience.

Photo by José Silva | All Rights Reserved

During the meal I shared with friends, they first served us some regional Bragança bread and a delicious smoked meat bread, very tasty. And that required the first glass of wine, in this case also from Trás-os-Montes, red wine “Quinta das Corriças Reserve 2011”. Full bodied but at the same time very elegant, the acidity very much present giving balance, soft red fruit notes and some smoke, just a fragrance.

Photo by José Silva | All Rights Reserved

There are several tasting menus, the price changing according to the number of courses and wines of each. In our meal we began by enjoying a small roll with smoked sausage from Vinhais and fine herbs butter, served in a round brick, which was still warm, the butter easily melting and going deep into the fluffy bread dough. What a good start!

Photo by José Silva | All Rights Reserved

In another brick, this one thinner and longer, there was a can, like those of tinned food, which served as a receptacle for a Vinhais rocket sausage “à Braz”, with small slices of smoked sausage, the fried potatoes well connected with the rocket sausage paste and the contrast with the smoked sausage as a sophisticated touch.

Photo by José Silva | All Rights Reserved

Another round brick came as well, with two temperatures pickling brine partridge, the partridge meat very well shredded, all that very well pressed and the pickling brine on top, in a simple but refined execution. As hot dishes we tasted a hunting bird soup (pheasant and partridge), with turnip and pumpkin, juicy and very tasty, the soup very hot, in a beautiful chromatic composition, the color orange of the pumpkin dominating, several tastes very well integrated in a delicious exotic soup.

Photo by José Silva | All Rights Reserved

The main course proposed was a superb matured “bísaro” pork loin, soft, smooth, very well cooked, with a slight cover of its own fat, an excellence meat. With the company of some pot cabbages, traditional in the pig killing ceremony, here served with style, stuffing a crispy seeds millefeuille, delicious. And still as a side note, a caramelized fig, stuffed with some of the pig´s giblets. Almost a work of art! We closed the meal with a traditional orange tart in good company.

Photo by José Silva | All Rights Reserved

By that time, the second wine bottle was already at the end…

Contacts

Pousada de São Bartolomeu
Rua Estrada do Turismo, 5300-271 Bragança
Tel: (+351) 273 331 493 Fax: (+351) 273 323 453
guest@pousadas.pt
Pousada-De-Bragança