Hello and welcome to my weekly dig through the pile of wine samples that show up asking to be tasted. I’m pleased to bring you the latest installment of Vinography Unboxed, where I highlight some of the better bottles that have crossed my doorstep recently.
This past week included a bunch of fancy Portuguese wines as well as a couple of fun wines from California.
If you’ve got bubbles, you gotta start with bubbles, so let’s look briefly at a long-aged sparkling wine from the Douro region of Portugal. Famous for Port, of course, and increasingly for its dry table wines, the Douro is most certainly not known for sparkling wine, but maybe that’s why it took an American to start fermenting a bunch of early-picked local Douro grape varieties (both red and white) and throwing them on the lees for extended secondary fermentation in the bottle. The winery is named Caves Transmontanas, but their brand is Vértice, and they make a small amount of crazy-long-aged wine that they call Super Reserva, aged for 15 years on the lees. It didn’t knock my socks off, but it was beautifully textured, for sure.
Next we have the opportunity to compare two versions of Albariño, or, as Anselmo Mendes would say, Alvarinho. Mendes’ Parcela Unica (literally “single parcel”) Vinho Verde is a tour-de-force of the category, and one of my perennial favorites. If you want to know what Albariño should really taste like, this is a great candidate for a master class.
The latest version of Albarino from Two Shepherds winery suffers perhaps slightly in comparison, expressing more of the bright, ripe sunshine of California than the steely hills of Portugal, but there’s lots to like about the wine. You can also scan farther down for a nice rosé of Mourvedre and a carbonically-macerated Carignane, both of which are stables of the Two Shepherds lineup, and for good reason.
Back to Portugal, let’s take a look at what might be the most expensive white wine made in Portugal, Niepoort’s “Coche,” an unapologetic ode to Burgundy. Thankfully the Niepoorts didn’t try to make a Chardonnay. Instead, they took an old field blend of Arinto, Códega do Larinho, and Rabigato and made it in a Burgundian style to excellent effect, from the flinty struck-match nose to the silky rich citrus cream of the body. This is one sexy wine if you’re into spending a few hundred dollars for this sort of thing.
Alexandre de Almeida is not a winemaker, he’s a hotelier, and a famous one at that. But he’s also Portuguese, so having a little wine made in his home province of Barraida didn’t seem like a stretch. This refreshing white is quite tasty, but I’m not sure it’s worth the tariff.
Moving into reds, Casa de Passarella has been making wine in the same place since 1892 in Gouveia, Portugal. They produce a number of wines, but only occasionally a bottle that they simply call Casa de Passarella. It is a suave and refined field blend of local varieties from the Dão region that gets extended barrel aging and bottle aging before release. The 2011 vintage is the current release and only recently hit the market.
The Costa Boal family has roots in Portugal traceable for 150 years or more, with several branches having made wine at some point or another. But the Costa Boal wine company launched only in 2009 when António Boal decided to re-ignite the family business in Boal’s home town in Trás-os-Montes, the mountainous interior province of Portugal. The winery produces wine now in three areas, the Douro, Alentejo, and Trás-os-Montes. The Palácio do Távoras Gold Edition is the winery’s flagship wine from the region, and offers a refined expression of Touriga Nacional and Baga with a touch of Alicante Bouschet.
Notes on all these below.
Tasting Notes
2007 Caves Transmontanas Vértice “Super Reserva Brut Espumante” Sparkling Wine, Douro, Portugal
Pale gold in the glass with very fine bubbles, this wine smells of…
Source : https://www.vinography.com/2024/08/vinography-unboxed-week-of-8-11-24
