Food & Drink in the Algarve, Portugal

What to drink during your stay in the Algarve

The Wines of Portugal -

The London Wine Trade Fair and G7 Group of Wineries

Bom Dia

G7 - sounds like a classic pop group or some kind of economic summit?  Well in fact it's a grouping of 7 large Portuguese wineries `Grupo dos Sete' - well actually currently only 6 as Sogrape have recently left but this may increase to 9 later in the year!  Set up in 1992, originally by the 7 biggest wine companies, the membership has changed over the years but the members are still large and certainly globally-minded.  Their aim?  Simple - to promote sales and raise awareness of Portuguese wines in overseas markets.  Sounds just like my job actually!

At a recent tasting and dinner the members showed their wines at the Ambassadors' Residence in London's Belgrave Square.  All six of the companies were present and I have reproduced the menu and accompanying wines for you below.

The wineries showing (many of whom I have mentioned in previous articles) were:

Caves Aliança, Quinta da Avaleda, Bacalhôa, Herdade do Esporao, José Maria da Fonseca & Messias

Between them all, G7 produce close to 70 million bottles of wine per year, under 200 different labels & export to more than 120 countries. The wine regions covered include - Douro, Vinho Verde, Bairrada, Dao, Ribatejo, Beiras, Palmela, Estremadura, Setúbal &Alentejo. In fact, pretty much all of the mainland.

The Portuguese Ambassador himself, António Santana Carlos, was present at the dinner as were winemakers from G7, including the famous Australian Portuguese, or is it Portuguese Australian these days, David Baverstock.

Smoked Salmon pie with endives & mushrooms

• Avaleda Follies Alvarinho; Vinho Verde 2006

Codfish with cream & vegetables

• Aliança Garrafeira Bairrada 1997

• Quinta do Cachao Grande Escolha; Douro 2004

Sirloin with ancient mustard

• Tinta da Anfora Grande Escolha; Alentejo 2005

• Domini Plus; Douro 2004

• Esporao Private Selection; Alentejo 2003

Vanilla ice cream with tropical fruits & peach sauce

• Bacalhôa Moscatel de Setúbal 1997

• Alambre Moscatel de Setúbal 20 years old

So a little about the companies themselves, starting with Caves Aliança.  Established in 1927 in Bairrada, the company today exercises very strict controls over the quality of grapes used and has around 800ha of vines across Portugal.  Since 1999 the company has employed the famous French winemakers Michel Rolland & Pascal Chatonnet as consultants alongside winemaker Francisco Antunes.  The aged Garrafeira wine tasted is of course an example of an aged reserve wine.

Quinta da Avaleda is by far the leading company in Vinho Verde, producing around 13 million bottles annually; 60% of this is exported - to over 90 countries.  Apart from its eponymous wine, the big brand is the famous Casal Garcia.  The Follies wine is from their recently introduced premium range and from the excellent Alvarinho variety.  Once again we have a French influence with the involvement of oenologue Prof. Denis Dubourdieu from Bordeaux.  The Quinta also produces fine aguardente - Adega Velha.

Bacalhôa, Vinhos de Portugal is the new name for the very well known winery, Joao Pires & Filhos (J.P. Vinhos), founded in 1922, with wineries in Setúbal, Alentejo & Estremadura.  The company's heritage includes the Renaissance palace of Quinta da Bacalhôa and a mansion & estate in Loridos plus an outstanding collection of antique Portuguese tiles.  Tinta da Anfora is amongst their famous brands with Escolha being another definitive quality classification.  As well as 500ha of vines, the company can age up to 6000 barrels of wine!

Finagra S.A. - Herdade do Esporo in the heart of the Alentejo, 180km south of Lisboa, only dates back to 1973 as a wine operation and did not release its first named wine until 1987.  However the estate itself can be traced back as far as 1267 and its famous tower is still its trademark today. There are 600ha in Esporao plus a further 180ha at Herdade dos Perdigoes and the production is 9 million litres.  This is the winemaking home of the above mentioned David Baverstock who I managed to chat with at the ExCel Fair in London mentioned below.

The company of Jose Maria da Fonseca is the oldest and one of the most prestigious wineries in Portugal with the Soares Franco family tracing their involvement in the wine business back over 160 years.  JMF are also one of Portugal's largest vine growers with over 3750ha of land under vine.  Their vineyards include more than 450 different grape varieties and the company also has one of the most advanced vinification centres (winery to you & me) in the world.

A family company dating back to 1926, Caves Messias has its vineyards spread across the north of Portugal.  It has an excellent reputation for its Sparkling Wines and is another big exporter - 75% of sales; across 5 continents & 50 countries.  Here their Quinta do Cachao is an example of the native Touriga Franca variety.

So, coinciding with the above event it was the annual London Wine Trade Fair at the Docklands ExCel centre at the end of May.  As I reported last year, once again the Portuguese area was both impressive and very popular with the trade visitors. The G7 group of 6 themselves had a very attractive stand as did the generic body, ViniPortugal where seminars were being staged throughout the 3 days of the show.  These included presentations by one of the leading Portuguese restaurants in London - Portal where I just happened to have recently enjoyed some of Luis Pato's Baga varietal Bairrada wine (accompanied by several Hungarian winemakers!).

The IVDP, Port & Douro Wine Institute, were also very active with food & wine matching sessions featuring Douro wines & ports specifically for restaurants and their sommeliers.

Other impressive presences include the wineries of the Vinho Verde region.  Needless to say I managed to allocate much of my time at the show to Portugal, tasting my way through a fair number of the thousands of wines on show and chatting to the winemakers.

I was going to include some stories from my recent visit to Faro & the Algarve this time out but space has now run out so I'll just have to carry this over to next month.

Until then

Martin
Wine Educators International

www.wine-educators.com