By the time you read this, the “Good Morning Portugal! Wine Club” will have met for its March session, tasting and discussing a Portuguese wine (or wines), online, as it’s been doing since the Covid lockdown era.
From that time on, as a weekly relief from social distancing rather than the current monthly schedule, the GMP! ‘Wine Ninjas’, as we call ourselves, have tasted close on a hundred wines, which we call “rigorous research and attention to detail” where others say “booze-up”!
What began as a way of staying sane, if not sober, and was merely fun and not in any way snooty, has become an institution among a small band of merry foreigners who have developed a devoted affection for Portuguese wine and its culture of growing, production and presentation.
No longer merely a wine club, one might say it’s now a borderline cult of appreciation, which goes way beyond just wine tasting into the realms of more general Portuguese cultural understanding and social education.
As one stalwart participant, Gary Austin over in Alvaiázere (or Al-Viagra, as I affectionately call it), puts it: “Originally, I was not really a wine drinker. Sure, I might have had the odd glass of red, or two, in the past with a meal, but I had no great connection or love for the product of the vine.
“After living in Portugal for over four years, my outlook is so very different now,” continues ‘Garvo’. “Wine, olives and good quality food are a way of life here in Central Portugal, woven into the very fabric, culture and lifestyle of people who value family, friendship and community.
“With that in mind, I cautiously joined the ‘Good Morning Portugal! Wine Club’ as a complete novice, to learn more about how wine is made and indeed why it is so important. Now, some years later, it is a very different story for me because there is so much more to wine than just a bottle of booze. The deep history, folklore and evolution add as much interest as the taste of some truly spectacular wines that can easily compete with anything else from around the world.
“My mission with the Wine Club has been to keep it away from being exclusive and stuffy, and make it fun and relevant. Why shouldn’t it be? That’s how it works best in its natural setting of family and friends just having a great time enjoying life’s simple pleasures.
“These days, I take more time to study what’s in the glass, how it smells, looks and the procession of tastes across the different parts of the tongue,” he shares enthusiastically. “Often I might think out loud ‘what sort of food would or wouldn’t go with this offering?’. All this from a working-class lad from The Midlands (UK) – just goes to show anything is possible!”
For the March tasting and conversation, a kind of alcohol-based ‘show and tell’, Gary offered a great suggestion: “Find a wine with an interesting, unusual or funny name from any region.” He says this, knowing that Portugal boasts a fabulous array of wonderfully-named fermentations that include BSE (which no British farmer would consider), ‘Old Mule’ (Mula Velha), ‘Cat’s Stone’ (Pedra do Gato), Três Bagos (only three berries in one bottle of wine?!) and ‘Acorn Crusher’ (Trinca Bolotas) featuring a fat pig, who we assume ate the mighty oak seeds before accompanying a robust red himself?
Going up a shelf, Portugal also has the dubiously-monikered Licor de Merda, hailing from Cantanhede, where we hope to host a ‘Good Morning Portugal! Discovery Weekend’, a name, and flavour, which I will leave you to research for yourself. Suffice to say, I trust the top notes might be best ‘left for five minutes’.
Continuing with charming and unusual names, and perhaps moving on from the ridiculous to the sublime, let me add to this fascinating and educational list a brand that you’ll struggle to discover in the supermarkets, where most of the aforementioned can usually be found. It is ‘Malhadinha’, meaning ‘spotty cow’, which (or who) it was my pleasure to be introduced to just recently at my favourite Silver Coast luxury location.
Open up their website – www.malhadinhanova.pt – for this part of the article and look at the stunning Alentejo images therein, as I tell you more about the remarkable family, team and destination that Brits and other Europeans might call a ‘Friesian’ cow.
Back in 1998, the Soares family say they “went chasing a dream. A dream of time and space. A passion for nature and products harvested, respecting her.” Giving new life to Herdade da Malhadinha Nova, located in Albernoa, in the heart of Low Alentejo, they transformed a place “stopped in time”, where they began once more planting, harvesting and sharing genuine, high-quality ‘Alentejano’ products.
Bringing life back to the vines of the farm, they decided to raise autochthonous breeds (a new word to me, I must confess, basically meaning ‘native’), “in total harmony with nature and a rigorous protection regime”, in honour of the area’s DOC – denominação de origem controlada – the system of protected designation of origin, for wines as well as fruit, cheeses, butters, and other Portuguese agricultural products.
“Renovated and reborn from existing ruins,” the Malhadinha we see today, with all its charming and honoured “nooks and crannies”, is not only a winery but a beautiful, boutique place to stay, eat, drink and unwind – hosting wellness retreats and other special events too, aside from the chance to sample truly delicious organic wine with carefully crafted food, olive oil and honey.
I love the word ‘bucolic’, and this single word sums up the splendour of this landed labour of love where the best Rosé wine I have ever tasted – their Monte da Peceguina – is made, alongside a dazzling array of other, beautifully produced and presented gems.
Next to their monovarietal offerings and conscientiously blended wines of every hue in their gallery-esque wine shop, you should also sniff out the Brut Natural Rosé, a sparkling wine from a single year (2016), “developed using the traditional method common to the best champagnes in the world”.
And see also the ‘Late Harvest’ dessert wine with its apricot and ginger influences, which I sampled alongside an Apricot Cloché crowned with a white chocolate dome, à la Michelin-star-seeking Marco Areias at the Storytellers Palace.
This! This is what we GMP! wine clubbers love about Portugal and its wine: some of the best experiences in the world, but without the worst of wine world snobbery – genuine, authentic, and regularly delicious!
Carl Munson is host of the Good Morning Portugal! show every weekday on YouTube and creator of www.learnaboutportugal.com, where you can learn something new about Portugal every day!
