Portugal 2009: Part 2

Casa de Mouraz

Ok - so following on from our evening meal at Quinta dos Roques we got up the next day and headed off to the tiny village of Tondela to see Casa de Mouraz, still (just about) in Dao.  Casa de Moouraz are a really interesting producer who make biodynamic wines.  I have been selling their wines for a few years and I really like them.  They are not a "commercial" style but they are really well made and individual and you can almost taste the love and hard work that has gone into the making of them.  At this stage I had just been getting to grips with biodynamic wines so it was really good to meet some biodynamic producers to help getter a better understanding of what biodymnamism (is that even a word?!) is.  They weren't even weird!  The wines are so pure and they really do have a sense of belonging - it was great to taste them in the garden of the winery right next to the vineyards.

Luis not giving me a verbal assault!

From one of Portugal's newest stars we headed off to see arguably Portugal's brightest - Luis Pato.  Luis is a world famous producer and I have had the privilege of meeting him several times.  The first time we met was at a wine fair in Madrid when I was the buyer for Laymont & Shaw and we were his UK representatives.  I didn't know that he was exhibiting so when I saw his stand I went over to introduce myself.  After I had declared who I was his reply was - "so you are the guy who's not selling enough of my wines in the UK".  What a great start!  I stammered some inadequate reply and assured him that I would make sure that I passed his comments on to the sales team (in a vain attempt to absolve myself of all culpability!).  Since then we have had better meetings - mainly because I don't think that he remembers who I was!

A ghostly Niepoort

After a fantastic tasting with the "Duck" we set out for Port country - Vila nova de Gaia.  Here we went to Niepoort.  As I mentioned in the previous post, Dirk Niepoort is a bit of a legend himself and he does not confuse his port and wine businesses so it was really interesting to see the difference between the wine & port operations.  The port lodge was a really enchanting place and a real "Aladdin's cave".  We had the opportunity here to blend some port from samples of the current vintage.  At this stage 2007 had been declared and it was interesting as Niepoort were of the view that 2008 was also potentially good enough to declare.  This is one of the things that sets Niepoort apart - he doesn't make these decisions based on commercial criteria like so many other port houses (no more than 3 declarations a decade etc) - Niepoort's ethos is "if the vintage is good enough, then let's declare it so".  This is a really refreshing view and something that should be applauded.  Niepoort does things differently, but for all the right reasons.  As his logo states "o porto niepoort sabe...a quem sabe..."

This was the final stage of our trip, apart from a cracking meal in a rather posh restaurant which Dirk part-owns.  After this feast we headed back to the hotel where we demolished some Port (Niepoort of course) and went off to bed.  Everybody had to be up at stupid o'clock apart from myself who had to catch a train down to the Algarve as I was joining a group of friends on a stag-do.  Then the (responsible) drinking really started!

Next I'll put up some of my favourite photos from the trip.