Weekly Wine Quiz #58: Grape Trivia – Syrah
Shiraz grapes. Source: Wikipedia
Welcome to the weekend! To start your weekend right, it is the time for our traditional grape and vine exercise.
We are continuing the grape trivia, and today’s subject is … Syrah, or as they call it in Australia, Shiraz.
Syrah is a red grape with thick black skin, capable of producing full-bodied, big and powerful wines. Primary aromas associated with Syrah are usually of blackberry and black pepper, but as the wine ages, it shows a number of very diverse flavors, such as leather, tobacco, chocolate and more. Syrah is known under the name of Shiraz in Australia and South Africa. France, United States (California, Washington, Oregon) and Australia are typically considered to be the source of the best in the world Syrah wines, but Spain, Italy, Chile and Argentina are all producing very interesting Syrah wines as well.
Now, let’s move on to the quiz. As before, the quiz consists of 5 questions, and the answers will be provided next Wednesday.
Q1: Where is Shiraz?
Q2: Which white grape often plays a role of blending companion for Shiraz?
Q3: One of the appellations below can be removed from the list – can you tell which one and why? For the answer to count, “why” explanation is required
A. Cornas
B. Côte-Rôtie
C. Crozes-Hermitage
D. Hermitage
E. Saint-Joseph
Q4: About 100 years ago, Syrah was a popular addition to the wines of one well known region – now this practice is totally illegal by the appellation rules. Do you know what region was that?
Q5: Where do you think are the oldest in the world continuously producing Syrah vineyards are located? Can you guess the approximate age of the vines?
Enjoy your weekend, good luck and cheers!
Wine Gadgets!
Wine accessories, or gadgets for short. What is your take on them? Do you find all those wine gadgets to be a nuisance, a waste of money and useless? Or do you have your favorite bottle opener you swear by as nothing else can deal with the bottle as quickly, neatly and efficiently?
Being an oenophile, I find myself surrounded with all those little wine tools – some I buy, some I get as presents (dear friends: two dozens of bottle stoppers is quite enough, no matter how fancy they look like, I think I’m set for quite a while, so please bring the wine instead). But the important part is that I actually use many of those little gadgets – some pretty much daily, like bottle openers, pourers, glasses or vacuum pump. Some occasionally, like bottle chillers, Champagne bottle stoppers, aerators and decanters. Some are reserved for the OMG moments only, like that Wine Away spray. Some are used only when guests are coming, like glass charms. And then there are those which are priceless when I travel, like bottle sleeves or special wine carriers and even suitcases.
The fact of the matter is that I use the wine gadgets, and many of them actually help with the wine appreciation. Like the simple bottle pourer, which helps to avoid red smudges on the wine labels and red circle on the table cloth. Or elegant glass, which exhumes with excitement as soon as it is filled with golden or purple liquid. Where am I going with all this? Simple. As I do it with wine, I want to share my gadget experiences with you – and to tell you what worked for me, what didn’t work, and what you might find useful.
At this point my plan is to have a wine gadget posts on Thursdays – there are plenty of little tools to talk about, so I don’t know whether this will be a weekly feature or not, but time will tell. And if you have any “yay” or “nay” to say about this idea – your comments are always welcome. And until the first gadget post – cheers!
P.S. Don’t forget that today is Chardonnay Day! Celebrate one of the world’s most popular grapes in style!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Chardonnay Day, Wine Appellation Earth?, Best Blogging Tips and more
Meritage Time!
First and foremost, let’s start with the answer to the wine quiz #57, Grape Trivia – Grenache. Below are the questions, now with the answers:
Q1: Name two grapes which are traditional blending partners of Grenache
A1: Yes, we are talking the famous GSM blends, and the blending partners of Grenache are Syrah (Shiraz in Australia) and Mourvèdre (known as Monastrell in Spain and often called Mataro in Australia).
Q2: Below is the list of countries which use Grenache in the winemaking. Sort the list by the area of Grenache plantings, from the highest acreage to the lowest:
A. Australia, B. France, C. Italy, D. Spain, E. United States
A2: The correct answer is France, Spain, Italy, US, Australia (so it will be BDCEA). The culprit here was Italy, in my opinion, there Grenache is known as Cannonau – I didn’t expect that Italy grows so much of it… Here is my source of data – an article at Wine Folly’s web site.
Q3: One winery in US is often credited with spearheading the success of Grenache in US. Can you name that winery?
A3: Tablas Creek winery in California – they imported Grenache cuttings from France to the US in 1990, and it was the beginning of great Grenache wines in US. Here is an excellent article about Grenache on Tablas Creek’s web site.
Q4: A few centuries ago, Grenache was a popular blending addition in one of the regions in France, until it became illegal by the AOC rules. Do you know what region was that?
A4: Actually, it was Burgundy, where addition of Grenache was popular way to add body to otherwise finicky Pinot Noir wines. Of course it is illegal practice for the long time.
Q5: Same as for the number of other grapes, Grenache exists in three different grape variations – Grenache Noir, Grenache Blanc and Grenache Gris. There is one wine where it is absolutely legal to use all three grapes as the part of the blend. Can you name that wine?
A5: Châteauneuf-du-Pape! Well, I should’ve post the question as “type of wine” – but in any case, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (CdP for short) AOC rules allow inclusion of all three different Grenache grapes into the same wine. I always thought that CdP allows 13 grapes to be blended together in production of CdP wines, but it appears that the rules has recently changed, and now there are 18 grapes which are all allowed for use as winemaker desires.
And the winner is…(drum roll)… The Drunken Cyclist with five correct answers! He is definitely on the winning streak for a while and once again he gets unlimited bragging rights. I want also to acknowledge The Winegetter, Red Wine Diva and Eat With Namie who all got 3 out of 5 questions right – definitely a commendable effort.
Now, to the interesting stuff around the web vine – boy, there is plenty to share!
First, sorry for the late notice, but tomorrow is 4th annual Chardonnay Day! Well, Chardonnay is not such a hard wine to get, right? You still got time to make sure you will celebrate in style, whatever your style is – Burgundy, Chablis, Big California, California-pretending-to-be-Chablis, I-am-unoaked-and-almost-like-Pinot-Grigio-chose-me – anyway, any kind of Chardonnay goes. And if you want to officially assert your participation, here is a link to the event page where you can officially join the ranks of Chardonnay aficionados.
Next, I want to bring to your attention an interesting post by Mike Veseth of The Wine Economist fame. The post is titled Is This the Beginning of Juice Box Wine? and it is talking about true globalization of wine in terms of production – one of the new wines from Barefoot called Impression and it is produced from the juice sourced from all over the world, so the wine doesn’t state any appellation on the label. What do you think of such approach to winemaking? Will this be a fluke, or will we see more of the wines from appellation Earth?
As you know, I’m a big fun of Stéphane Gabart’s blog, My French Heaven. I find his food pictures as some of the most incredible I ever come across, in the blogs or on Pinterest. Now Stéphane was very kind to write a blog post called “20 tips for stunning food photography“, which definitely worth your attention if you want to master your food picture taking skills. Also, as this is not the first time I refer to some of the “best tips and practices”, I decided to create a dedicated page for the Best Blogging Tips, where I will be collecting all the references like this one. If you have any suggestions as to what should be included in that “Best Blogging Tips” collection, please let me know – I hope to make it into a very useful resource for all.
Next subject is … beer! Yes, even in the wine blog there is a place for a beer. When you hear about the beer called Nuclear Tactical Penguin – is that the beer you would want to try? Well, okay, I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely interested. But turns out that this beer is practically impossible to get in US, so the best thing one can do is to enjoy it vicariously. This is what I did when I read this post at Wayward Wine blog. Outside of just great description of the beer, you can also learn about Frozen Beer category and how those beers are made – I think this reading will be well worth the time. Also, while looking for another beer from BrewDog company, this one called Sink the Bismark, I came across the list of 10 most expensive beers in the world! Now I want to try BrewDog’s The End Of History (55% ABV and still a beer!), but considering that it costs $765 for 330 ml, I will need a sponsor… anyone?
And last, but not the least subject for today – Wine Blog Awards finalists are finally announced. No, I didn’t make it to the list of finalists (sigh). But I would like to congratulate Jeff a.k.a. The Drunken Cyclist as he got into the finals in the Best Writing category. Anyway, this week is the public voting week, so you can cast your vote for the best blog here.
That’s all I have for you for today, folks. The glass is empty – but more wine is coming. Cheers!
Study of Port: Epilogue
What starts with prologue, should end with epilogue, right? What was supposed to be may be one or two posts, became a whole series. In case you missed any of the posts, here is a full list for the study of Port series:
Finally, let’s talk about Port!
What else can I tell you? We had a great week in Portugal. Very short conclusion can be “great people, great food, great wines, great scenery, great time”.
All people we came across were very nice and helpful. Language barrier was never an issue (I also have to mention that a lot of people speak very good English) – one way or the other we were always able to understand each other. Hotel, restaurants, port houses, stores, our numerous walking tours will only stay in memory with great people encounters.
The food? Very good quality, very reasonably priced. Memorable moments? Bacalhau, Francesinha, lots of fresh fish and shellfish of all kinds. Tuna fish spread is served in almost all restaurants with the bread (you need to ask for butter). Port is available at the buffet breakfast in the hotel, next to the orange juice. Below is the best representation for you (sorry if I make you hungry):
Portuguese Seafood
But probably the most important part about the food in Portugal is the fact that Portugal practically doesn’t import any agricultural products – everything is either produced, caught or raised locally, and you can taste it.
When it comes to wines, the story becomes interesting. First, there are about 80 grape varieties growing in Portugal, most of them are indigenous grapes. Here is a glimpse for you, as captured in the picture below:
Portuguese Grape Varieties
By the way, these unique grapes are a great find for all aspiring Wine Centurions – I personally added 5 new grapes to my list – here they are:
Codega do Larinho – 2011 Castello D’Alba from Douro
Rabigato – 2011 Castello D’Alba from Douro
Moscatel Galego Branco – 2012 Portal Colheita Branco Douro DOC
Antão Vaz – 2010 Herdade Dos Grous Branco Vinho Regional Alentejano
Donzelinho – 2011 Niepoort Tiara Douro Branco
Outside of Port, very few of the Portuguese wines make it to US, and out of those few, there is even lesser number of wines of notice. Meanwhile, if you will make it to Portugal, you will be literally astonished by the availability of very inexpensive and absolutely delicious wines, both in the stores and in the restaurants. I already gave you my account of great wine encounters in the previous posts (Quinta do Cardo, Niepoort Tiara, Quevedo Vintage Port), but I actually saved the best for last – 2009 Casa Burmester Reserva Douro DOC (blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinto Roriz) was an absolute highlight of the red wines I tasted during the Porto trip.
I don’t want to even describe this wine in terms of berries, chocolate, coffee, spices – it had everything, but the major thing about this wine was an absolute balance of fruit, structure, power, acidity, tannins – all the elements which make you go “wow” after the first sip where perfectly there. I can’t give you one to one analogy for the way this wine tasted, but to give you an idea of how impressed I was, I would safely put it in one line with 2000 Chateau Margaux, Vega Sicilia Unico and Vintage Krug Champagne. In case you are curious about my rating, this wine gets Drinkability: 9.
I believe I sufficiently inundated you with the pictures of the beautiful scenery, but let me still add a few more:
All roads lead to Port…
Awakening and Anticipation …
Vila Nova de Gaia
Port caves – view from above
Douro River view
Time to finally conclude the series. I don’t know what you think, but I really enjoyed writing all these posts. I also saw a lot of happy comments, including those where people said that they will definitely go and visit Portugal (which will be very smart, if you ask me). If you will actually travel to Porto, I hope you will find some useful information here. And in any case, thanks for reading and cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #57 – Grape Trivia: Grenache, a.k.a Garnacha
Grenache Noir picture from Wikipedia
And we are continuing the Grape Trivia series – today’s focus is the red grape called Grenache (also known as Garnacha and Garnaxta in Spain).
Grenache is one of the most planted red grape in the world. It is a late ripening variety, which typically produces spicy, juicy, berry-flavored wines with high alcohol content. In the number of regions, such as Priorat in Spain, Châteauneuf-du-Pape in France or California and Washington in US, Grenache produces outstanding single-varietal wines, but more often than not it is used as a blending companion, adding juicy component and structure.
And now, to the quiz!
Q1: Name two grapes which are traditional blending partners of Grenache
Q2: Below is the list of countries which use Grenache in the winemaking. Sort the list by the area of Grenache plantings, from the highest acreage to the lowest:
A. Australia
B. France
C. Italy
D. Spain
E. United States
Q3: One winery in US is often credited with spearheading the success of Grenache in US. Can you name that winery?
Q4: A few centuries ago, Grenache was a popular blending addition in one of the regions in France, until it became illegal by the AOC rules. Do you know what region was that?
Q5: Same as for the number of other grapes, Grenache exists in three different grape variations – Grenache Noir, Grenache Blanc and Grenache Gris. There is one wine where it is absolutely legal to use all three grapes as the part of the blend. Can you name that wine?
Enjoy your weekend, have fun and good luck! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, World Sherry Day, How To Start You Wine Book Project, Wine Blog Awards?
It is Meritage Time, and Meritage posts are back!
Let’s start from the answer to the wine quiz #56, What is it? In the quiz, you had a picture of wine-related object, and you were supposed to identify what is it and how it should be used. Here is the picture which was presented to you:
And here is the answer, in the form of another picture:
Port Tongs Display at Sandeman
The object is called port tongs, and they are used to open a bottle of vintage port or any old wine without fighting with the cork. The way to use it is this: you heat up the tongs until red hot, put it around the neck of the bottle underneath of the cork, hold it for some time, then remove and use cube of ice to go around the heated up circle – the glass cracks cleanly and can be removed now.
I really wanted to have such a device, ever since I read the post about old Rioja wines in PJ Wine blog – and now I do. I’m not sure how often or even when am I going to use this device, but – now I can if I want to (freedom is everything, right?)
I’m glad to say that we have two winners – both waywardwine and thedrunkencyclist correctly identified Port tongs in the picture, and the drunkencyclist provided perfect description for how port tonging is done. Congratulations to our winners – both of them get unlimited bragging rights.
Now, to the interesting stuff around the web. First, the World Sherry Day will start on Monday. This is going to be one long day, as it starts on May 20th and lasts through May 26th, but hey, that means that you can drink more sherry during one day. Find the place near you to celebrate, or just grab a bottle and indulge on the beverage which might be easily hundreds years old, and still affordable at the same time. If you need a crash course in Sherry, here is the link to one of my posts (I also plan to talk about sherry in more details at some point in the near future).
Dreaming of writing the wine book, you think you got something to say and you think you can convince people to share your vision? Then take a look at this post by Wink Lorch, where she is talking about her successful fundraising project on Kickstarter for her Jura wine book.
Last interesting note for you – if you remember, a while ago, many of us, wine bloggers, asked for your nomination for the Wine Blog Awards 2013 – and many of us got nominations, for which we profusely thank you, our readers. The interesting part is that the week of May 10 – 17 was designated as voting week for the public, after jury selects 5 finalist blogs for each category – here is the link to the rules for you. Today is May 15th, and it doesn’t look like finalist blogs had been selected and that public can vote on them. Oh well…
That’s all I have for you for today, folks. The glass is empty. Until the next time – cheers!
Study of Port: Finally, Let’s Talk About Port!
Finally, we’re arriving to the culmination point of our Study of Port cycle (here are the links to the previous four posts – post 1, post 2, post 3 and post 4). You probably noticed that while the cycle is called “study of port”, we talked very little about Port wines themselves.
Port Transporter, called Rabelos, now only used to carry around the tourists
For me, Port is one of the most difficult subjects in wine (of course Burgundy classification and German wines are the crown jewels of “difficult wine subjects”). There are many different styles of wine, overall still collectively called Port. There are Ruby, Tawny, non-vintage, Vintage, Late Bottled Vintage, 10-, 20-, 30-, 40- years old ports, all available in the wide pricing range. On top of everything, Port is considered to be a dessert wine, and at certain point in life, brain just start either outright protesting or at least behave extremely cautiously around anything related to the word “sugar”.
Thus I was determined to use my Porto trip as a learning opportunity and do my best to acquire an understanding of the subject of Port directly from the source (I hope that clarifies the overall name of the theme chosen for this series of posts). Before I arrived to Porto, I sent out a few e-mails and twitter messages to he various Port houses, explaining that I’m a blogger and I would like to learn about Port and taste some of the older vintages. The only person who actually responded to me was Oscar Quevedo from the Quevedo Port house. After a bit of back and force we settled on the date and time.
Once I arrived at the Quevedo Port house… Well, I will not inundate you with the long story, and the short story was that Oscar was not there (but he was very kind to stop by the hotel in the afternoon of the same day and undergo my very intense questioning for 30 minutes). Rachel and Manuel were “running the shop”, and while I was there at the Port house, I read a lot of useful information along the walls (I guess it can be called a self-guided tour), but that still didn’t answer all my questions (like why Vintage port should be consumed within 1 to 3 days from the opening of a bottle, and Late Bottled Vintage (LBV for short) does not. I started asking Rachel and Manuel all of my questions, and I think I drove them both a bit insane – I have to thank them both for their patience with me, especially Rachel, as she really did her best trying to to figure out all the differences and details together with me.
I also tried young vintage port, 2010 Quevedo Vintage Port – and it made me happy.
The vintage port is supposed to be filtered when it is poured in the glass, which was performed using the jigger and special metal mesh filter.
Every aspect of this wine was simply exciting. The color – I don’t know if the picture truly conveys the color, but it was deeply concentrated, dark ruby red. The nose – ahh, all the fresh berries you can imagine, … And the the palate – texturally present, dense, heavy, lots of fresh fruit. Yes, the was sweetness there, but oh so balanced with acidity, tannins and overall power. So far I was refraining from rating of the wines in this series of posts, but this wine was definitely a 9 and I’m sure it will be a part of my “2013 top dozen”.
When I met with Oscar in the afternoon, I used the opportunity to bombard him with the questions in my effort to understand the wine called Port. And now I want to share my newly found understanding with you, so for what it worth, below is my attempt so dissect and summarize the world of Port.
First, here are some interesting facts about Port.
- As with any other wines, the truth is in the eye of the beholder – and in our case, “beholder” will be a winemaker. Effectively, winemaker knows his vineyards, and winemaker knows what vines are capable of producing specific kinds of ports – Tawny, Ruby, Vintage, non-vintage and so on. But when it comes to Port, that winemaker’s knowledge is also verified before it can be put in the bottle and on the label – by the governing organization called IVDP.
- Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto, or IVDP for short, is a top authority regulating production of all Port wines. When winemaker wants to declare a vintage, the sample is sent to IVDP, where it is assessed ( in the blind format) for all the quality of the vintage port, starting from the color, and then vintage designation is either granted or declined. According to Oscar, IVDP knows everything about each and every port producer – how much of what kind of port is in the barrels, how many bottles were sold, how many bottles are still remaining with the Port house and so on – IVDP owns and processes all the information related to the production of Port.
- Less than 1% percent of the total port production is designated as Vintage port.
- Most of the red port wines are made out of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Francisca and Tinta Cão grapes.
- Port is typically fermented for 3-5 days, after which fermentation is stopped with addition of neutral spirit (grape brandy). The addition of the spirit is also a reason behind port’s classification as “fortified wine”. The resulting port wine usually has ABV in the 18% – 21% range.
- Treading, the process of pressing grapes with the feet, is still in use today, but by a very small number of producers and only for the very special wines. The pressing by the feet creates just the right amount of pressure which doesn’t break the seeds – which helps to reduce bitterness of the wine.
- Vintage port is the only port which continues aging in the bottle. Vintage port should be treated as regular wine in terms of handling and storage, and consumed during 24-72 hours after opening of the bottle.
- New oak barrels are never used in production of the port. The barrels have to be used a few times for producing the regular wines, only then they become suitable for production of the Port.
Now, let’s look at the classification of the Port wines. As you know, I like using mind maps, so here is Port’s classification in the form of the mind map:
Port classification
Now let’s add some details:
- Rose Port
- the latest addition to the world of port, had being produced only for a few years. Very short contact with skin after pressing. Personal note – I tried a few, and had not been impressed so far.
- White Port
- 3 years aging in stainless steel or neutral oak, then blended, filtered and bottled. Will not age in the bottle and ready to be consumed when you bought it. After bottle is opened, it should be stored in the fridge and consumed relatively quickly. Personal note – the white port from Sandeman was an eye opening experience – you should really try it.
- Tawny – ages in the small oak barrels with controlled oxidation. All ports in this group don’t age in the bottle and ready to drink when you buy them. Also all ports will last for many weeks after the bottle is opened.
- Single Vintage
- Colheita
- Grapes from the single vintage. At least 7 years of aging in the oak barrel (can be longer), then blended, filtered and bottled.
- Colheita
- Blend of vintages
- Tawny
- 4 years in oak barrel, blended, filtered, bottled
- Tawny Reserve
- 8 years in oak barrel, blended, filtered, bottled
- Age-designated Tawny
- 10 years old, 20 years old, 30 years old, 40 years old – all of these ports are blends of ports of various ages. The blend is composed by winemaker’s discretion – for instance, a 40 years old can be a blend of 30 years old and 100 years old.
- Tawny More Than 40 years old (not an allowed designation in US)
- Tawny
- Single Vintage
- Ruby
- Ruby
- 3 years of aging in the stainless steel/neutral oak, then blended, filtered and bottled. After opening, the bottle should be consumed within a few days, and best to be refrigerated.
- Ruby Reserve
- 6 years of aging in the stainless steel/neutral oak , then blended, filtered and bottled. After opening, the bottle should be consumed within a few days, and best to be refrigerated.
- Vintage
- about 2 years in stainless steel, can be some time in oak barrels, bottled unfiltered, continues aging in the bottle. After opening, consume within 24-48 hours.
- Late Bottled Vintage (LBV)
- 4 – 6 years in the oak barrel (I’m sure about the age, not sure about oak barrel versus stainless steel)
- Single Quinta Vintage
- Somewhat complicated. It designates that grapes are coming from the single vineyard, but age/blending/bottling etc. is not very clear. But for all intents and purposes, should be treated as Vintage port.
- Ruby
I think I told you everything I know at the moment about Port – but I will keep adding and refining to this post just to make sure I got it all correctly. Before we part, here are couple of pictures for you:
Ruby and White Port age in this huge barrels. One barrel holds 80,000 liters (about 20,000 gallons)
Tawny port ages in the small oak barrels
Do you remember where the cork tree grows? Yes, in Portugal!
That’s all I have for you, folks. Comments and corrections are most welcome. Cheers!
Happy Mother’s Day!
If it wouldn’t be for Moms, the world wouldn’t exist. They carry the “life” literally inside and outside, and all of us, collectively and individually are very grateful to them for all they are doing each and every day.
Today is Mother’s Day, and in order to celebrate all the Moms, I want to do two things. First, here is a great article from the friend, blogger and mother herself, SAHMMelier – “Being Enough this Mother’s Day” – it is well worth reading.
And of course, I want to give flowers to all the Moms. I love taking pictures of the flowers, so below is a small collection which I want to present to you. Enjoy and Happy Mother’s Day!
Weekly Wine Quiz #56: What Is It?
It is Saturday, and wine quizzes are back at Talk-A-Vino!
I will continue the grape series with the next quiz (we already covered 3 grapes, so there are only about 200-300 left), but for today, I want to play one of my most favorite games – the one with the picture, you know?
Below is the picture which is very relevant to the wine world – do you know what it is, what it is for and how to use it?
Good luck, enjoy your weekend and don’t forget that Mother’s Day is tomorrow. Cheers!
Study of Port: Great Restaurants
You know, I’m continuing this series about great experiences in Portugal (here are part 1, part 2 and part 3), and there is this annoying little voice inside which says “stop talking about it… Keep it for yourself… Once people will find out, they will all start going there, and all the great and inexpensive food and wine will become expensive and inaccessible… Keep it a secret…”. Never mind, the inner voice lost, and one can’t keep great experiences secrets anyway, so let’s proceed, shall we?
Today I want to present to you three restaurants, all three different, but literally one better than the other.
Let’s start with the place called bbGourmet. Actually, bbGourmet is a group of restaurants, and the specific one we visited is called bbGourmet Bull&Bear. The restaurant has good rating on Trip Advisor, but when I walked by the restaurant, it looked modern and not very inviting from outside, so at first I thought we can skip it. But then people on Trip Advisor probably know a thing or two about food, and the place was relatively close, so why not give it a try, right?
Restaurant indeed looked very modern inside, but with the nice ambiance. The menu had tasting option for €35 for four dishes. For another €15 you could add a wine pairing to all the dishes. Yes, you don’t need any hard guesses – of course this is what we did.
To give you a brief summary: perfect dishes + outstanding wines + very good pairing = great experience. I’m an engineer, remember? Of course it is fun to think in math terms, right? Okay, just ignore. Moving along…
First dish: Scallop with risotto. Perfectly gentle array of flavors, with sweetness of scallop complemented by mild tartness and zest of risotto.
Pairing: 2011 Prova Regia Arinto Vinho Regional Lisboa – 100% Arinto grape, bright acidity, some grapefruit notes, very similar to New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc – worked perfectly together with the dish.
Second dish: Sea Bass with black quinoa and fennel puree – that puree was particularlyoutstanding, overall an excellent dish
Pairing: 2012 Portal Colheita Branco Douro DOC, a blend of 45% Vinsinho, 20% Moscatel Galego Branco, 20% Malvasia Fino and 15% Rabigato. A bit drier than the previous white, more saddle and herbaceous flavors. Paired very well with the dish.
Third dish: Stuffed calamari. May be the best, definitely one of the best calamari dishes I ever had – perfect texture, perfect balance of flavors with the creamy sauce.
Pairing: 2011 Niepoort Redoma Rosé Douro DOC – a blend of 30%Tinta Amarela, 20%Touriga Franca and 50% others. A bit austere, needed a touch more fruit in my opinion. This was probably least successful pairing.
Fourth dish: Roasted veal. I’m not big on veal in general, but this was perfectly succulent dish. Those “potato chips” you see in the picture? They are not chips at all! They look like chips, but they soft literally like soft taco shells. Delicious!
Pairing: 2010 Portal Colheita Douro DOC Vinho Tinto – a blend of 60% Tinta Roriz, 25% Touriga Nacional, 15% Touriga Franca – very nice overall, good amount of dark fruit, soft and approachable, good oiverall balance.
And then – liquid desert! Secret Spot 40 years old Moscatel do Douro – I would guess, this is how winemakers play in Portugal – while they make the port all the time, every once in a while they make something for themselves – that is possibly the story behind this Moscatel (well, you will have hard time proving me wrong…). The wine was heavenly, with enough acidity to prevent it from becoming a syrup, and lots of complexity which can be rather expected considering the age. That was a perfect finish for a great meal.
40 years old Moscatel
The next restaurant was called ShiS (at the time of writing, the #21 out of 376 on the TripAdvisor’s list of restaurants in Porto). The first thing to mention about this restaurant is its location. It is located right by the wall which protects Douro river from the ocean, and the views are just exceptional. Before we talk about food and wine, here are couple of pictures I managed to snap right by the restaurant:
ShiS offers lots of choices of sushi and sashimi. This was our dinner in the making:
And this was my dish (chef’s selection sushi and sashimi combination):
Here is also a sea bass dish:
We had few of the very good wines. For the white we had 2012 Quinta do Crasto Douro Branco (a blend of Gouveio, Roupeiro and Rabigato) – somewhat on a fruity side, but overall dry, with good acidity and good balance. Quinta do Crasto produces some of the best wines in Portugal, especially when it comes to red, and these wines should be available in US.
The red wine was 2010 Quinta do Vale do Meandro Meão Meandro Douro DOC, a blend of 45% Touriga Nacional, 30% Touriga Franca, 13% Tinta Roriz, 5% Sousão, 4% Tinta Barroca, and 3% Tinto Cão. Good dark fruit on the nose and on the palate, soft tannins, overall well balanced. It should be available in US and worth seeking.
Dessert – Crème brûlée with chocolate sauce and of course, Port! Taylor’s 20 years old Tawny was very good, with dried fruit and nutty notes, quite light and balanced (we finished the only two bottles the restaurant had, unfortunately).
Crème brûlée with chocolate sauce
20 years old tawny – always appropriate
By the way, the wine list at ShiS has one interesting detail – it lists ABV for all the wines – I think this is pretty neat and I would be glad to see that in restaurants in the US:
Wine list at ShiS – note ABV ratings for all the wines
And now last, but not the least experience I want to share with you – Cometa Restaurante.
The first issue was with wine – the restaurant had pretty small wine list, and even out of that small wine list, our first and then next choice were not available. Finally we settled on the white wine which restaurant had available. Then food became an issue too – most of us quickly set our minds on having a grilled squid – and it appeared that the restaurant only had one portion available for the five of us, so we had to come up with the other choices. The menu also had roasted chestnut soup with pomegranate seeds – but in reality, it was not available (sigh).
As the bottle of wine finally arrived at the table, things started to turn for the better (wine can fix all the problems in the world, right?). Then some appetizers arrived, and it was time to get another bottle of wine – only the same wine was not available anymore. Truth to be told, it was unfortunate that restaurant didn’t get the delivery of the wines they were supposed to get, so that was the reason for the shortcomings with the inventory. Okay, we went through the exercise of selecting the bottle of wine again, I would say, quite successfully – we picked 2010 Herdade Dos Grous Branco Vinho Regional Alentejano, a blend of Antão Vaz, Arinto and Roupeiro (typical for Alntejano white wines) – a medium to full bodied white, with good amount of white stone fruit, very round, good acidity and good finish.
Herdade dos Grous branco
Next – our entrees arrived. I ordered the dish called “Portuguese sausage”, which was effectively a collection of poultry pieces, served with the sweet sauce. By the way, take a look at the china – I love those plates… Real food served on real plates – wow, what a concept! But it feels so unique nowadays, when even in the best restaurant you might get paper napkins instead of a real cloth… This Portuguese sausage was delicious – I’m not sure if it was a duck egg or not on top of it, but the whole dish tasted perfectly.
Considering all the troubles we had with our food and wine selection, the restaurant decided to compensate for that a little bit, and offered us complementary bottle of Sparkling wine, which didn’t encounter much enthusiasm on our side, as we were mostly done with the food. Seeing our reaction, we were offered a bottle of 2011 Niepoort Tiara Douro Branco (at €34, it is one of the most expensive wines on the list) – and all of a sudden, all our troubles seemed well worth having.
2011 Niepoort Tiara Douro Branco
This wine is a blend of Codega, Rabigato, Donzelinho, Boal, Cercial and other grapes. Bright and full bodied, excellent acidity, very uplifting. This wine has great textural presence, you really feel it in you your mouth, you can roll it around – but it is so balanced, the fruit, the acidity, the whole package is perfectly together. Reminds me of the great Pigato wines I experienced at the Gambero Rosso event. One of the very best white wines I ever had (yeah, my list of “very best” might be a bit too long…).
And then the dinner conclusion with dessert – I’m clearly abusing the “very best” here, but this was one of the very best apple desserts I ever had – apple tart with the scoop of ice cream:
Apple tart
The apples were not visible, but very noticeable – big, juicy apples which say “bite me”. If you like apples – this was an outstanding dessert.
One parting note regarding Cometa Restaurante – the restaurant doesn’t accept international credit cards, so you should have cash on hand with you (well, there is an ATM near by, but it is always unpleasant when you can’t pay for your meal on the spot). By the way, care to guess how much this dinner cost us? We can skip the drum roll, but – it was only €35 per person!
And we are finally done! Every time I promise to myself to write short little posts, easy going for quick consumption – and I still end up with multi-page monstrosities with tons of pictures. Well, I hope I conveyed my main message – there are many great restaurants in Porto and I’m sure in the Portugal overall and they are still reasonably priced, so if you are thinking about going to Europe… No, I’m not encouraging you. Cheers!
