8/5/26 - 

I just returned from a trip to Portugal where, courtesy of our friends at GK Selections, I had the opportunity to visit an array of great producers across the country. This was an eye-opening experience for me, as regions like Alentejo and the Dão have such unique climates and terroirs, something you can really feel as you travel place to place. The hospitality and kindness we were shown at each of the wineries was really touching, and perhaps only matched by all of the fantastic food and wine (I’m still dreaming of my first taste of the famed Serra da Estrela cheese). Today’s offer features a few of my favorites from my travels, all wines that I found to be really high-quality regional expressions.

----------------

View from the Natus winery

By the time our group was done meeting with Hamilton Reis and his family at their estate in Vidigueira, we were all beside ourselves. "How do they manage this all on their own?" "He's also the head winemaker at Mouchão?" "This is what he does in his downtime?" We all asked. As it turns out, the Natus project runs entirely on the passion that Hamilton and his wife, Susana have for wine, and there's no way the wines could pack all of their charm without it.
At the Reis', there is a fine line between the home and the winery. Their house sits directly on top of the cellar, and the estate vineyard (which you can find pictured underneath their removable labels) is quite literally their backyard. Hamilton tells me that the estate is entirely off-grid, with its own batteries, water source, etc. The vines are farmed regeneratively, with the goal of maintaining healthy soils and a pristine expression of Vidigueira. Not only are the vines farmed with incredible care, but standing in the vineyard also allowed me to finally feel what it is that distinguishes this terroir, something Hamilton had explained to me when we briefly met in New York earlier this year. Cooling Atlantic breezes flow inland to Vidigueira and are held in place by a horseshoe-shaped mountain range, mitigating the region's intense heat and long hours of sun. Though the afternoons can get quite hot, the diurnal shifts are dramatic, and mornings are remarkably cool.

It's easy to forget when touring Natus that this is Hamilton's passion project, and his day job is head winemaker at Herdade do Mouchão, who make some of Portugal's most prestigious wines. The winemaking reflects Hamilton's fine wine background; the world's great wines rarely owe their character to some secret ingredient or flashy technique; instead, you're shown a modest cellar filled with classic vessels, and the conversation turns to the less glamorous details: malolactic fermentation, how picking decisions are made, what distinguishes talhas from other amphorae, and so on. More info on the winemaking can be found in the individual wine descriptions, but my biggest takeaway was that the wines drink every bit as well as the care that goes into them. Hamilton's obsessive nature has resulted in wines that are remarkably refined while remaining expressive and personal.

-------------------------

Susana Esteban in the vineyards

To reach Susana Esteban, we headed to the north of Alentejo, to Portalegre. Here lies the Sao Mamede mountain range, where the vineyards climb into considerably higher elevations. Susana's winemaking is chiefly focused on the region's old co-planted vineyards, which she vinifies in a variety of ways, employing different vessels and approaches to compliment the mosaic of fruit she works with each vintage.
Walking through Susana's centenarian vineyards felt like discovering a paradise. Instead of industrial rows, her vines are scattered all over the place, with no arrangement or pattern. At such high elevations surrounded almost entirely by forest and mountains, you can see how these vineyards retain the freshness and acidity that is far from associated with the region. Alentejo is known for big, burly reds, and while that may not be Susana's imperative, you'd be hard pressed to form the argument that she's making anything but wines of terroir. In her case, she just has a tremendous mind for winemaking, and has managed to create beautiful expressions of an all to often overlooked landscape.  
The best comparison I could come up with for her wines was an Impressionist painting; the subject is still nature itself, but the artist isn't afraid to make subtle creative decisions if they help reveal its beauty more clearly. On offer today, for example, is the 2022 Tira O Veu, 30% of which undergoes skin-contact as well as aging under flor in amphora; the resulting wine drinks much closer to an elegant direct-press white wine as opposed to a showy skin-contact or oxidative wine. Whether it's a particular barrel, or natural process, in the case of Susana's wines these influences never feel imposing. Instead, they seem to frame the old vineyards more completely, giving more shape to something that was already there.

------------------

After Carlos Raposo's passing earlier this year, this was without doubt the visit I anticipated most anxiously. His Imperfeitos wines have become some of the most culty and sought-after bottles to come out of Portugal, and here I was, just another annoying wine guy from New York walking in with a notebook. If I wasn't already hugely impressed by the wines, his widow Mariana left just as strong an impression.

Carlos can be considered a disciple of a number of legendary wine producers, not least to mention Smith Haut Lafitte, but it was really his time at Niepoort which saw him begin to reach his full potential as a winemaker; there, he would assist in producing some of the most legendary wines in the domaine's history (i.e. Coche Branco). Carlos would go on to form his own label based in the Dao in 2018 and wasted little time in bottling serious wines (in the case of the Imperfeitos wines, some would argue the best) which were immediately well received. The fruit is always sourced, but care was always taken to collaborate with growers to ensure the best possible quality. That means organic grapes, picking at very specific moments, and fruit that can speak to the region. The cellar is impressive in size, as it was acquired from a bulk wine operation that had belonged to Mariana's uncle, but it doesn't take long to realize that the wines are made on a human scale. Not only were the Imperfeitos wines (sadly no longer in production following Carlos's passing) among the greatest wines we tasted all week, but so were the Ideal Branco and Ideal Tinto. These were wines that continued to unfold in the glass, even over the course of a relatively short tasting. Their intensity came not from extraction or lavish oak, but from natural acidity, careful farming, and restraint. I am happy to write that the wines, with the exception of the Imperfeitos line, will continue thanks to the hard work of Mariana and the rest of the lovely team in Nelas.

Pedro preparing old bottles to sample

Though our cellar tour and tasting at Horácio Simões happened almost immediately after landing in Portugal, fortified wines like Setúbal naturally belong at the end of a trip. Founded in 1910, the estate is now run by brothers Pedro and Luís.

The first thing to know is that these wines are not only fortified, but made predominantly from estate-grown fruit, supplemented only by grapes from neighboring growers who don't vinify themselves. The focus remains firmly on native varieties, most notably the exceedingly rare Moscatel Roxo. Much like the great producers of Banyuls or Maury, the house style begins with a short maceration on the skins before fortification, followed by several additional months of skin contact, and finally aging in old barrels anywhere from a few months to several decades.

Setúbal will probably always be the little brother to Port and Madeira, but after this visit it has become my preferred style of fortified wine. Whether young or fully mature, these wines consistently show remarkable acidity, something I can only compare to the best vintage Madeiras I've been lucky enough to drink (a few 1970s D'Oliveiras immediately come to mind), while still retaining a core of pristine fruit that puts them comfortably in the company of the world's great Ports.

---------------

It can be hard to return home after such a special experience abroad, but I'm very grateful that these wines can all be found in the states. I'm looking forward to setting a few bottles aside and reminiscing on this trip for a long time. To anyone either curious or already interested in the wines of Portugal, today's offer presents a great opportunity to explore bottles from some of the country's most exciting producers. Click "View The Wines" to browse the wines on offer today.

-Nick Douglas

>>>VIEW THE WINES<<<