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