2015 looks like another perfect year for Portuguese wines
http://fugas.publico.pt/Vinhos/352821_2015-mais-um-ano-perfeito-para-os-vinhos-portugueses?pagina=-1
09.12.2015
In Douro and Alentejo Wine Regions, where the harvest is underway for long now, we celebrate another memorable harvest.
In the Vinho Verde Wine Region, there are those who talk of "vintage of the century".
If the weather keeps up, 2015 promises to be a historic year for Portuguese wines.
In Douro, figs usually are a good barometer of the harvest. Last year, there were many and great, but they were little sweet and began to fall with the first rains. This year, the figs are more dehydrated, have not grown much, there are fewer, but they are sweetest. Great wines are coming.
Despite the drought and extreme heat that the vineyards of the Douro had to endure in June and July, the region may be living a new historical vintage. The last was in 2011, considered one of the best always - at least since there are records - to the point where the American magazine Wine Spectator have included three of 2011 harvest Douro wines in the top four of their top 100 2014.
Dirk Niepoort for example, believes that 2015 will be "even better than 2011"."This year is perfect, brilliant for Port wine and DOC Douro, if not harvested too late," he says.
"The wines that interested me doing, I already did hem. The grapes are very ripe, have well withstood the heat so far, but will start to come into fruit overripening, creating imbalances that are favorable for the Port wine but unfavorable to the DOC Douro, since the acidity will plummet" explains.
The Symington group has also anticipates a new vintage year: "Although the maturation cycle was simultaneously one of the hottest and driest of the last 36 years, water reserves in the soil were sufficient to sustain the vines, because of the heavy rains in the beginning of the wine year, that would prove decisive. Second, the month of August has been [was] less hot than usual with values of daytime temperatures and night below average for the time and this has been very favorable for the vineyard, "noted Charles Symington, responsible for oenology. Charles remembers that "it is easy to look only in the aspect of precipitation, when in fact the air temperature in this phase of the cycle of the vineyard, has equal influence on the ability of the vines to produce healthy grapes with good balance between the level of sugar and acidity."
The final maturation cycle is perfect, with cool nights and not too warm days. But the excessive heat and lack of water accelerated the degradation of grape acids, mainly the ones from the lower altitude areas, which is forcing producers to make major corrections with tartaric acid (a natural product). "Nothing that the Douro and Alentejo are not used" as referred, with some humor, critic João Paulo Martins. In this regard, Bairrada's Luis Pato talks about a recent experience with a wine "José de Sousa Rosado Fernandes 1940", a red wine from Alentejo: "They must have used so much tartaric, that it lasted so long. When new it must have been undrinkable, but now it's very good."
Ignoring the low acidity, in the Douro, the wines are born full of color and flavor, with good concentration and structure. The year will mainly feature vineyards located in the higher areas and Touriga Nacional, which can better preserve the acidity than Touriga Franca. In turn, this variety, which plays a decisive role in the Douro wines, is to compensate for their low acidity with a more generous alcohol content and juicy and tasty grapes. The small size of the clusters of most varieties is also helping the overall quality of the wines.
In the Vinho Verde Wine Region, the euphoria is also great. There is already talk in this being harvest of the century. "The century is still small, but it all comes together so that the harvest this year is better than the 2011 harvest. 2008 and 2005 were also very good," says producer and winemaker Anselmo Mendes. "Grapes are in spectacular health status and the rain that fell in late July was liquid gold," he added, emphasizing the high quality of the grapes from Alvarinho, Loureiro and Avesso. "But we work in the open and the rain can put an end to everything," he warns.
Last year, around this time, we also expected an extraordinary harvest all over the country. But the heavy rains that fell in the second half of September laid everything to lose. Bad weather affected in particular regions that pluck later or based its prestige on sensitive varieties such as is the case with Bairrada the Baga variety. This grape variety needs, above all, of sun and heat in the final phase of maturation, since it doesn't lack acidity. This year, sun and heat is what has not been missing, so in this region expect an "absolutely fantastic harvest" says Dirk Niepoort, that besides the Douro, also makes wines in Bairrada and Dão.
"The five years are always excellent in Bairrada," theorizes Luís Pato, giving as an example the 1975 harvests in 1985, 1995 and 2005, all of them spectacular. Critics of Baga would say that his theory only confirms, in excess, another theory, according to which, in Bairrada, there are only two good years of Baga per decade ... But that's another story and it is always dangerous to generalize. Even in bad years, there are always those who make great wines of Baga. This year, if the weather does not change much, the harder it will be making bad wine.
And this applies to any part of the country, especially for the cooler regions, like Lisboa or Dão. Here, only even heavy rain can prevent a year of great wines. And even in Alentejo, the region most punished by the heat, are expected memorable wines. At the beginning of the harvest, "it seemed that everything was advanced in time," the "fruit was getting mature ahead of time, we would not have color and flavor in the grapes. But no. As always when working with nature we had to wait to see, and the result appeared: mature and with much flavor fruit. Nature has its time" summed up in the, Luis Cabral de Almeida, chief winemaker at Herdade do Peso, in Vidigueira.
