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Portugal's
Alentejo
Part
1: Introduction
An Alentejo cork forest, plus sheep
As a wine-producing country, one of Portugal’s great strengths is
its diversity. At one extreme lie the fresh, light, zippy Vinho Verde
wines from the damp, green, northern Minho, and at the other there are
the rich, concentrated red wines from the hot
 Alentejo in the south,
with a whole spectrum of flavours in between. The Alentejo is where
Portugal’s climate finally escapes the Atlantic influence, and the
scenery changes
to large, gently undulating plains that experience
baking hot summers and cold winters more typical of continental
weather systems. Think of it as Portugal’s ‘new world’, with the
potential to make extrovert, ripe wines with a taste of the sun about
them. This is the least populated of Portugal’s regions, and instead
of the smallholdings that typify the agricultural landscape elsewhere,
the Alentejo has many large estates. Referred to as the ‘bread
basket’ of Portugal, wheat is the most important crop here, with the
poorer soils being reserved for olive trees, cork oaks and vineyards. If
you want to locate the Alentejo on a map of Portugal, it's inland and
down a bit from Lisbon, touching the Spanish border on the east and
the Algarve is at its south end.
 Aside
from the many tourist attractions in the region (such as the towns of
Evora (left), Borba and Estremoz), it is wine that is currently putting the
Alentejo region on the map, and more specifically, its red wines.
There are two distinct styles of Alentejo red. First, there is what
can loosely be termed the traditional style. These often combine
earthy, herby, undergrowth-like savoury flavours and aromas with the
fruit. Traditional Alentejo wines are often complex and reasonably age
worthy. Then there is the modern style, perhaps best demonstrated by
the wines of Esporão,
João Portugal Ramos or Sogrape’s new Alentejo Reserva. These wines
show lots of intense fruit, with a richness that is quite ‘new
world’ in character, and not a million miles away from the style
that has made Australian wines such a success over
 recent years. Both
Alentejo styles are interesting and worthwhile, but it is the latter,
more modern group of wines that has been largely responsible for
putting the Alentejo on the map as one of Portugal’s most important
red wine regions.
Traditional
Portuguese grape varieties dominate the region, but newcomers such as
Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon are beginning to make inroads, often
blended with the local varieties. Some white wines are made in the
Alentejo, but it’s the reds that are forging the region’s
reputation. Demand for Alentejo wines, with their ripe fruit and
full-bodied character, has been such that vineyard land here is among
the most expensive in the whole country. Because many of the estates
are fairly large and the climate is so reliable, economies of scale
mean that Alentejo wines can combine quality with affordability, which
is more of a challenge in Portugal’s more northerly regions.
I
visited several of the leading estates in June 2005 to try to get a
fuller picture of the new wines emerging from this interesting region,
and this series takes an in depth look at what I found.
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