Quinta de Chocapalha

Passadouro vines

Grape Picking

Portugal Anniversary tour

25 May - 1 June 2008

It is 20 years since A&C’s ground breaking tour of Portugal, our first major tour, which revealed for the first time to the UK wine drinker the quality wine revolution that was going on there. (Only a few specialist merchants were active in Portugal and little had been written in the wine press about what was going on). Our friends the Australian wine makers Peter Bright and David Baverstock, who were in a large part the instigators of the changes, had advised us. We will be meeting them both on this tour too as we take another good look at the country, at what has been achieved and what the new generation will bring.

We start in Porto with dinner at Grahams Port lodge, following a superb introductory tasting of port styles.

The area to the south of Porto is the heartland of Portuguese quality table wine. Its denominations Bairrada and Dao have not always lived up to their potential, however the top estates, who we visit, make wines of great character. Throughout the week we’ll enjoy traditional Portuguese meals as private guests at many of the estates, enjoying the famous hospitality which the Portuguese offer with such grace and charm.

Heading south, we stop in the Ribatejo to taste the wines that Peter Bright is making in his various projects in Portugal, which will be a fascinating insight. After lunch we continue South to the Alentejo. The Alentejo region exploded onto the market some 10 years after the rest of the country. Many of the estates here had been invaded and taken over as worker’s co-operatives in 1975, and by the time their original owners had recovered them, much of the vineyards and and the wineries themselves were in disrepair. This is the main reason why though the wines had huge potential, the rustic reputation took so long to shake off.

Nowadays Alentejo produces some of the greatest (and most expensive) wines of the country. We’ll see everything from modern state of the art wineries to a cellar equipped with clay amphorae in a series of visits to the leading producers. We will meet the dynamic winemakers who are driving the region forwards. In the Alentejo we stay in the UNESCO world heritage town of Evora, which we do have plenty of time to enjoy. Our last night is in Lisbon, but first we stop to explore the wines of Setubal peninsula, the Moscatel de Setubal and other wines made by J.M. Fonseca.

Our last visit and lunch is with the Tavares family at Quinta de Chocapalha, where we taste the wines made here and in the Douro by Sandra Tavares Borges.

This is a special tour, accompanied by Tim Clarke, to a country we know very well and love very much. the wines of Portugal are sure to be very interesting and the hospitality will be superb. A tour not to be missed!.