Portugal mega-tasting day two

Another busy, tiring, but thoroughly enjoyable day of tasting on Sunday. My candidate list for the Top 50 Portuguese wines has swelled considerably. I'm pleasantly surprised by just how many seriously good wines there are on show. Even though I have been following the Portuguese wine scene for some years, I hadn't realized just how fast the ranks of top-flight producers had swelled. There's quite a bit of stuff we don't see in the UK on show here, too.

Last night's dinner was an enjoyable event which, rather fortunately, didn't go on until 4 am! Distributor Vinalda took me out to the impressive Casa da Dizima restaurant with four of their producers: Alves de Souza, Carlos Lucas (Dao Sul, now called Global Wines), Nuno Cancela de Abreu (Casa Alorna) and Julio Bastos (Dona Maria). The wines we drank were excellent, and the food was simple and beautifully prepared.

Now I'm going back to do a little more tasting before heading home. Pictured are some of Dirk Niepoorts crazy 'Projectos' wines.