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