WINE-COUNTRIES PORTUGAL

1 - Algarve
2 - Alentejo
3 - Alentejo alto
4 - alentejo basso
5 - bairrada
6 - Bucelas
7 - Dao
8 - Douro
9 - Estremadura
10 - Lafoes
11 - Madeira
12 - Pinhel
13 - Ribatejo
14 - Vinho Verde Wineries

Vineyard area: 387 thousand hectares

Total production: 7.5 million hectolitres

Annual consumption
total: 5.53 million hectolitres
per capita: 55 litres

Exports: 2.48 million hectolitres

Imports: 23 thousand hectolitres

Principal grape varieties: baga, cercial, tinta roriz, tortuga nacional, touriga francesca, alfrocheiro preto, alicante bouschet, alvarinho, aragonez, arinto, assario, avesso, barcelo, bastardo, bual, cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, jaen, loureiro, malvasia, moreto, periquita, perrum, rabo de ovelha, roupeiro, tinta amarela, tinta barroca, trincadeira, verdelho, vital, tinto cao.

Portugal

With 387,000 hectares of vineyard Portugal is the world's fourth largest wine producing country after Italy, France and Spain. The importance of Portugal's wine culture is reflected in the fact that 4 per cent of the country's territory is planted with vines, a figure only closely matched by Italy with its 3 per cent. In spite of her vast vineyard area, with 8 million hectolitres annually (70 per cent red) Portugal is only the eighth largest wine producing country and has the world's lowest vineyard yields, averaging a mere 21 hectolitres per hectare. Many of Portugal's vineyards are in arid areas with a high incidence of old vines. Dry and often stony soils rich in slate, chalk and eroded granite yield grapes with plenty of substance and tannin which are far more suitable for the production of quality than mass produced wines. Until the 1970s wines from large and medium sized wineries as well as those from cooperatives founded during the 1950s were drunk almost exclusively on the home market and in the colonies. Wineries (often called 'Caves' in Portugal) produced first class Reserva or Garrafeira wines which were often only released after ten years, having reached their first phase of maturity. There are still superb wines on the market with no mention of their growing areas and labelled simply as 'vinho de mesa'. It has now become more usual to state the vintage and wines made from single varieties are also occasionally encountered. When it comes to wine the Portuguese are rather conservative and proud of their wide variety of autocthonous grapes - over 500 in number - and in recent years they have established recommended and permitted grape varieties for all quality wine growing areas together with minimum and maximum proportions for each.

Portugal has 44 quality wine regions, of which 13 have DOC status (corresponding to the French AOC) including the four legendary dessert and aperitif wine specialities Porto, Madeira, Moscatel de Setúbal and Carcavelos. The largest region is the Vinho Verde area with 50,000 hectares producing 1 - 2 million litres of light, acidulous white wine with a minimum of 8.5 per cent alcohol each year. The red wine areas with greatest potential (though also for certain whites) are Dáo (20,000 hectares producing 30,000 hectolitres), Douro (identical to the Port region) and the Bairrada, where numerous successful wine estates have their headquarters. Colares (legendary red wines, now almost extinct), Bucelas (elegant white wines from the Arinto grape) and the rather ordinary Algarve region Lagos, Lagoa, Portimáo and Tavira only play a secondary role. Since 1988 31 additional VQPRD regions have been established by law (that is, areas with stipulated production regulations), some of which may be raised to DOC status in future. Among these the Alentejo regions are especially successful, above all for red wines including Portalegre, Borba, Evora, Redondo, Reguengos, Granja-Amareleja, Vidigueira and Moura. The 'vinho regional' (roughly equivalent to 'vins de pays') area includes the regions Cartaxo, Coruche, Chamusca, Almeirim, Santarém and Tomar. The Estremadura (also called Oeste) comprises the VQPRD regions Arruda, Alenquer, Torres, Obidos, Alcobaca and Encostas de Aire. The remaining regions are called Chaves, Valpacos, Planalto Mirandes. Varosa, Encosta da Nave, Pinhel, Castelo Rodrigo, Lafóes, Cova da Beira, Palmela (well known red wine) and Arrábida. The most recent top vintages were 1983, 1985, 1988 (minimal yields, great structure) and 1990. 1991 and 1992 were partly good to very good and 1994 was once again excellent.

Porto (Portugal)

Port or 'Porto' is named after the town which is the commercial centre of the production region. Portugal's most famous wine is shipped to over 100 countries throughout the world. Strictly speaking it begins its journey at Vila Nova de Gaia, a small town across the Douro opposite Porto. A combination of the steep north facing slope and mist from the river afford an optimum micro climate for the 40 odd Port producers. However, the growing area is 100 kilometres up river in a unique, wildly romantic, lonely landscape.

Douro was the world's first officially delimited wine growing area and has remained unchanged since 1756. It comprises 250,000 hectares of land, of which 30,000 hectares are planted with vines. Some 30,000 growers work the 85,000 vineyards along the river or in one of its numerous side valleys, mainly on spectacular terraces.

Around 190 million mainly guyot-trained vines are tended by hand and produce 100 - 120 million litres of wine. Only 40 - 50 per cent of the production is marketed as Port, the remainder as normal red and white wine and quality is increasing. Grapes are selected from the best sites and graded from A to F according to quality. Wine brandy with 77 per cent alcohol is added to the fermenting must. This halts the fermentation to produce a wine with 19 - 21 per cent alcohol which retains natural fruit sugar. Port's complexity derives from the grape varieties, over 100 in number, and today nine red and six white vines must account for 60 per cent of the wine's make up, the most noble of which is Touriga Nacional both for Port and red wine production. Tinta Roriz is a synonym for the Spanish Tempranillo. With only 10 to 15 per cent of production white Port only plays a minor role. Dry and extra dry Ports are exclusively white, though the top wines are without doubt red.

It is easy to differentiate between styles. On the one hand there are the full bodied, tannic, sweet ruby to dark ruby wines bottled after just a few years, while wines destined for France (which accounts for 40 per cent of Port exports) are the famous Tawny Ports, cask aged for a long period and favourites as aperitif wines. The former range from simple two year old Ruby Ports through 'vintage character' to the Late Bottled Vintage Ports, bottled at an age of four to six years, light and ready to drink, through to the top product 'Vintage Port'. Tawny Ports of the standard type, bottled after three years are for the most part simple wines, though those in the 'ten years', 'twenty years', 'thirty years' and 'over forty years' categories can show great finesse, often with typical nutty aromas. Colheitas vintage wines are specialities, some of which are concentrated by decades of cask ageing and can be even more elegant than the bottle aged Vintage Ports.