{"id":14085,"date":"2016-02-28T23:30:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T23:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=14085"},"modified":"2016-02-28T23:30:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-28T23:30:03","slug":"visiting-aphros-vinho-verde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/portugal\/visiting-aphros-vinho-verde","title":{"rendered":"Visiting Aphros, Vinho Verde"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Vasco
Vasco Croft<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At dinner last night, Vasco Croft, owner of Aphros<\/a>, a biodynamic Vinho Verde producer, decided to invite a group to lunch. So Joao Roseira asked me this morning: how nervous are you with planes? My flight was at 1740, and there might just be time to drive there, have lunch, drive back, and still catch the plane.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

I made my flight (I’m actually a bit nervous of missing planes, and normally I like to be at the airport early), and had a lovely visit and lunch with a few others. I have followed Vasco’s wines for a while, and included his Vinhao in my top 50 Portuguese wine selection in 2009 (the list is here<\/a>): a brave move that others questioned.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

We looked around the vineyard (there are six hectares here at home base,\u00a0Quinta\u00a0Casal do Pa\u00e7o, and a further 14 at Quintas Espadanal and Valflores nearby), \u00a0and then saw his preparations room, his dynamizer, and a series of small pools used to energise water.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

The cellar is small and is used for special projects (it’s not his main winery), but it does contain his much talked-about amphorae. These are from the Alentejo, and the amphora wine is made without any electricity. He got a hand pump off eBay for 180 Euros that works fine.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

We lunched very well, and drank four wines. Vasco opened one of his last remaining bottles of the 2005 Vinhao, an intense, fresh, fruit-driven red with lovely presence and vitality. The 2007 Escolha Branco was also beautiful: delicate and fragrant, and developing beautifully. We had the 2012 sparkling Loureiro, which I really liked. And we got to try the distinctive, linear 2015 amphora white (this is one of two bottlings: it had stems, whereas the other was destemmed berries), with its haunting perfume and distinctive minty edge. The older wines were labelled Afros – the estate had a name change a few years ago because of confusion with hair styles.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

This was a lovely visit, and a fitting end to a memorable trip.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At dinner last night, Vasco Croft, owner of Aphros, a biodynamic Vinho Verde producer, decided to invite a group to lunch. So Joao Roseira asked me this morning: how nervous…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[350,316],"class_list":["post-14085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-portugal","tag-portugal","tag-vino-verde"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14100,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14085\/revisions\/14100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}