 I hope that this isn't all shaken up and it doesn't explode on me. Have you tried the Whites from Portugal before? Maybe it's about time you did. Learn more on this video. Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horkey. Welcome back to the show where we help you drink adventurously so you can expand your palate and expand your mind. We're going to get into some exciting, we're going to learn a little bit more about Portuguese white wines today. Before we get started, I want to let you know to check out our Patreon page. If you like content like this, you can help support this content and get some even behind the scenes look into what we do in our daily lives. But without further ado, let's get into the wine. So Portugal, a country that a lot of people know about. Most people associate with the fortified wines of port or Madeira. But a lot of people don't know there are exciting table wines, still dry wines being made in the country. As much as I love red Portuguese wines, I think the white dry wines are what excite me the most about the country. For the last couple of years, I've been going to Portugal every single year. COVID-19 has kind of knocked my schedule off this year. Hopefully, I do make it at the end of the year. I love the country. You have to understand that Portugal has a very old history of wine production. You know, it's regularly one of the top 15 wine producing countries in the world. There's close to 250 indigenous grape varieties and the white grapes are very, very exciting. A couple of things that you need to know for such a small country, Portugal packs a lot of diversity in terms of wine growing conditions. A cool thing also is a lot of the grapes are planted in all the regions of the country so you can start to see what the real regional differences and the real terroir differences are throughout the country. Some white grapes that you're going to want to look out for that are exciting. You're going to look out for things called Alvarinho, also known as Alvarinho in Spain. Arinto, Gouveio, Viosinho, En cruzado, Fernão Pérez, also known as Mérida Gomas, Bical, Cercia, there's some Malvazia there as well, Rabigato. So there's a wealth of unique white wine grapes. The regions you want to look out for, if you want something crisper, high acidity, if you're a fan of Reese's, if you're drinking a lot of shellfish, adult wines, you want to look to Vinho Verdes, most famous for Alvarinho, but there is Arinto grown there. There's a lot of different types of Viosinho is also grown there. These wines have really high acid work, perfect with shellfish. Another area you want to look to is the Durro. The Durro is known for port wines and big hefty red table wines, but you know what, I've been getting excited about the white wines there lately. A lot of them are barrel fermented and they're just rich white wines with a lot of fruit and a lot of structure. The wood gives them some durability, some age ability. I think those wines are exciting. Then the other regions in the north that are exciting, Bajada, where you're going to get Bical and also Maria Gomez, Fernão Pérez, some piney type of wines. But the region I really love is the Dao known as the Burgundy of Portugal. There's a lot of white and red wine grapes there. I'm most excited about En Cruzado. I don't think I've had a bad En Cruzado. These wines when they're aged in wood can have real elegant Burgundian type characteristics. Another region that all winemakers are crazy about is the region around Lisbon or the Lisboa region. A lot of winemakers when I'm in Portugal say that that is the premium place, the up and coming place. We have a wine from Lisboa we're going to actually taste today. We're also going to get some bigger, heavier white wines than the Septubal, Tejo, Alentejo, the Algarve. Those are the southern regions of the country. Those are hot regions, more known for red wines but there are some bigger whites being made there. I am a big fan of Alentejo, the white wines made of the grapes and talvas, real crisp easy drinking wines in addition to Rupáro. I know my pronunciations are going to be terrible throughout this video. It's funny the last time I was in Portugal, an employee from Sogrape told me, just think about when you speak Portuguese, think about a Russian guy trying to pronounce Spanish and I was like, ah, okay, okay. You know, one of the things I really like about Portuguese white wines is I find all of them have this nice mineral kind of backbone. There's plenty of fruit. Some wines can be too minerally without fruit. Some wines can be too fruity without more complexities. I think Portugal has a nice balance in between and we're going to get into some of these here today. The first one we're going to taste is the Vale do Mídio. This is Alvarinho and Viosinho. This is from the producer Miguel Jarrantes. Now these two grapes, it's so funny, are actually grown more in Vinho Verde and this wine is grown in the duro although it's not labeled as a duro, it's labeled as a Vino Regionale, Durianze, which kind of a lower classification but the wines are coming from the duro. I expect this to be a little bit richer. Let's give this a go here. Very nice nose. You get this lime-iness, lemon kind of kefir lime mineral. This might have been an Asian award because I get just a touch of vanilla but you know what? Portuguese white wines, I always think they're oaked very well. It's going to be the seawater characteristics, exciting. Let's give this a go. Much richer Alvarinho. The Alvarinho is going to get in Vino Verde like this bad boy from Escatano. This is the Alvarinho from up there in Vino Verde, this is 2019. These types of wines are going to be more steely, high acid things that you want to have with shellfish. This right here is a richer white wine. It's not as big as a Barrow Age or Barrow Fermented Chardonnay but it's kind of getting up there. Beautiful wine, limey, minerally. You know what? I also like about the duro. There's just slady soils there. So I get this slady type of flavor in the duro whites which I wouldn't expect since it's a hot region. That's really exciting. This wine is beautiful. I'm in a 90 plus point type of range for it and I think it's a wonderful wine. Let's move on. So one wine that we tasted already. I think this is definitely worth seeking out. This is the Chao De Sao Francisco Chao de Quinta and Cruzada Oto Reserva 2017 from the Dao. Like I said, this wine was extraordinary, very, very burgundy. You know what I mean? It's elegant, mineral, had this nice lemony acidity but still plenty of white peach, quince type flavors up front, mouth filling, a long kind of a sandy texture. I mean, I had this at about a 91 point type range. I thought it was extraordinary. I also thought this was a wine that was not even close to being ready to drink. This wine I think has a big future. Another thing that's cool about these white Portuguese wines or Portuguese wines in general is they offer tremendous value for money. I think in the country this is less than 20 euros. Maybe 15 euros for a world class white. This is under 50. I think all the wines here I have are under 20 euros. So I think that's really cool. Let's move on here. This is a famous producer I haven't tasted before. This is the Quinta do Convento Reserva Branco 2018. Now this is from what we talked about earlier, the Lisboa region around the capital Lisbon. You know, I actually haven't, I haven't found what the blend actually is. I've been looking, looking, looking. It was sent to me. I can't find it. So I don't know what the grapes are, but I think we'll be able to taste a little bit of what Lisboa brings to the table. I saw a couple possibilities. Could be anything from a rinto to some semillon in it. Who knows? I do know that it is aged in oak and it won a gold medal at the Lisboa wine competition recently. So let's give this a go. 2018. Oh, I almost blend it and mixed it. Let's give this a little bit of a go here. So first of all, color looks like a douse, not really, really, really dark. Let's give this a sniff. Now the wood comes out here, but the wood, and this is, this is really well done. It might even be barrel fermented. That's kind of what it smells like. Toast, white peach, white pear, cool white fruits type of deal. Maybe sliced white apricot. It smells really good. Let's give this a go. This is what I really like about this really well done saltiness. I actually feel like we're on the beach now in Dalmatia. I feel like I'm swimming in the ocean and licking some rocks. Extremely salty, really well done with the barrel integration. I'm a big fan. This has some semi-on characteristics, a little of those natural gas type flavors. Really good wine. This is not ready to be ready to be drunk yet. I'll have to taste it through a little bit more before I get my final score. But I think I'm pretty close in the 89, 90 point type range. I think this is a really, really nice wine. Shows a great example of why Portuguese wines take oak so well. Wonderful. I think I'm getting a little bit more excited about the Dal Incrusado Reserva. Maybe even the Valladonidia, but still a really, really nice wine. We don't have a dud yet. Let's move on. Now I'm cheating a little bit because this is a white wine, but it is actually made from red grapes. This is from Bajada, region known for big, tannic reds made out of the baguio grape, but also an area that's traditionally been a sparkling wine area. Sparkling wine production goes back to 1890 there. This is the Rama Enceles, Ramai Enceles, Metidoclasco, Blanc de Noir, Brute 2017. Let me see if there's any information. 12 months on the lease, 12 months in the bottle. So let's give before it was disgorged, let's give this a go. I hope that this isn't all shaken up and it doesn't explode on me. I'm glad that nobody was up top there because my face wasn't there because that could have definitely hurt somebody. Let's give this a go, shall we? So I've had some nice sparklings from Portugal lately. I was actually in a champagne blind tasting in November in Hungary and actually one of the wines I picked was one of my favorites. It was a sparkling wine from the Durro and it tastes like champagne. Let's give this a go. That scared the crap out of me. I don't know where the cork went. Let's give this a go here. Really nice note. Strawberry, kind of like an unripe type of strawberry cream lemon, it smells pleasant, doesn't smell like champagne, it's not overly aromatic, it just smells nice, delicate. Let's give this a go. Nice mouthfeel, good fine bubbles. I think this is a good sparkling wine. It doesn't have super rich complexities or anything like you want out of champagne. But it's just nice, delicious, serviceable. I don't get the baganness out of it, but I do think it's solid. I'm kind of in the 87.87, 88 point type range. I think it's a good sparkling wine, just not something that's blowing my face off. Yeah, it's good, not overly exciting but delicious. Before we go, I want to thank the family wine group in Portugal. They kind of represent these wines, help them go abroad so they were nice enough to send me some of these wines. Really, check out the white wines from Portugal. They're super exciting. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on. I hope to be back this year. I still actually haven't been to Mededa. I'm going to go to the island of Mededa. I haven't been to the island of Azores and the island of the wines that I like very, very much. So check it out. So let me know. Are you drinking Portuguese white wines? Do you have any favorites? Let me know in the comments below. Guys, if you liked this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel, and I will see you at the next episode. Hello. Thanks for watching. Hey, you made it to the end. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, click the bell so you know when new videos are out. If you like content like this, check out our Patreon page where you get some behind-the-scenes exclusive content. Thanks for watching. Cheers. Cheers.