Lisbon Story

The Douro and Alentejo are probably the first wine areas that spring to mind when it comes to Portugal, but the products of the Lisbon area have many virtues to recommend them, writes Rupert Millar.

OF ALL the many distinctive and historic wine regions in Portugal, the Lisbon region is probably the one most people know least about.

The Douro is the country’s best-known region, and the Alentejo, Vinho Verde (technically the Minho) and Dão are all increasingly famous, but the nine denominaçoes de origem controlada (DOC) that make up the Lisbon wine region can easily match any of their counterparts with their historical legacy, diversity and, naturally, their quality.

Wine has been made in the region for more than 2,000 years, with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians establishing vineyards in the area before 200BC, which marked the arrival of the Romans into Lusitania (as most of Portugal was then known).

Because of Portugal’s close relationship with England and then Great Britain (going back to the 14th century), a number of wines from the Lisbon area used to be hugely popular in the British market before and during the times when Portugal’s other famous wines found their followings there.

The coming of phylloxera in the late 19th century hit the region as hard as anywhere in Europe and, indeed, the shortage of wine in Portugal from 1865 to 1904 caused many governments to collapse.

In the wake of the vine contagion, much replanting was done with the aim of making brandy. The area was for many decades the chief supplier of brandy to the Port trade, and many wineries either still make some eaux-de-vie or at least still have some of the old distilling equipment.

From the 1950s onwards came huge changes in Portuguese winemaking, and when the Port trade went looking elsewhere for its brandy in the mid-1970s, the Lisbon producers were forced to readapt to winemaking themselves.

In 1981-1982, producers began to coalesce into a wine body going by the name of Estremadura (not be confused with the region of the very similar name in Spain). In 2007, more DOCs joined the group, and the decision was made to rename the region ‘Lisbon’ – a reference not just to the DOCs’ proximity to the capital city, but also the name by which many of the wines had been known during a period of popularity in 19th-century Britain.

The DOCs are all located either to the west or north of Lisbon itself, and the region overall is long and thin with a great exposure all down its western side to the Atlantic ocean, which contributes enormously to the overall climate of the area and character of the wines.

At its most extreme in Colares, the vines by the sea are so wind-battered and exposed to the raging ocean currents that they are trained to practically crawl along the ground, while, a little further inland, a range of hills offers more protection but every area experiences the ‘rocio’, the water-laden mist blown in by the Atlantic that swirls through the hills and valleys every spring and summer morning and the drying winds, the ‘vento’, that follow. Some areas are so renowned for being windy that certain parishes are named ‘Ventosa’ – ‘the windy place’.

The region is capable of producing, therefore, everything from light and refreshing Vinho Leve (literally ‘light wine’) very much like Vinho Verde, to hearty reds, fortified wines and excellent brandies, and there are increasing amounts of sparkling wines and rosé too.

Today, the Lisbon region ranks as the third-largest wine producing area in Portugal behind Alentejo and the Douro, with average annual yields of around one million hectolitres.

The region is dominated, as are many Portuguese regions, by co-operatives, and the majority of the wines produced are IGP, bottled as Vinho Regional Lisboa (Regional Wine of Lisbon), with a lot of the DOC wines being produced in the historic areas of Bucelas, Carcavelos and Colares.

The region boasts a typically eclectic array of grape varieties, ranging from traditional Portuguese grapes such as Castelão and Arinto to international varieties including Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.

DOC wines usually call for just Portuguese grapes but the IGP wines can be blended with the international varieties, with many winemakers thinking it’s a good way to introduce new consumers to their wines. As one export director noted: “It’s a way to familiarise them [native varieties]. It’s easier to taste something that you know.”

Lisbon boasts a wide array of soil types, from sand to clay and marl and more, and they have left their mark on the place names too. Any past or future visitors to the area should take note of the town of Bombarral, whose name is derived from the Latin for ‘good clay’, a feature noted by the Romans, who knew it would lead to the production of quality wines. There are many other examples of this throughout the region, and in Portugal as a whole.

As well as a chocolate box of grape varieties to pick from, it’s hard to pin down any one style that could be said to represent the region: that diversity is part of its strength and appeal.

If speaking generally about the region, however, one can’t escape the all-pervading, cooling influence of the Atlantic and the fact that the reds and whites are marked by a definite freshness and mineral quality, while the reds also enjoy long hours of southern European sunshine to make them ripe and well-rounded but with gentle tannins.

“The region has a very specific microclimate which allows us to have ripeness, minerality and freshness,” says Ricardo Correia, director of one of the leading wineries, Casa Santos Lima. “Many winemakers would want to have this, and for us it’s very little effort.”

He’s right too because it’s exactly this style of approachable, drinkable wine that suits the palates of so many consumers in northern Europe, the US and Asia.

ASIA

The nature of the wines, the fresh whites and juicy reds, makes them perfect drinking wines for any number of markets, not least China and Hong Kong.

They’re also available at quite astonishingly good prices, with the retail cost for a bottle starting at HK$40 from some larger companies but rising to as much as HK$500+ for the very top wines.

Some companies have made inroads into Asia; Casa Santos Lima exports about 15% of its production to China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, while the ever-busy minds behind Vidigal Wines are creating a new label for China that features one of Lisbon’s most famous musical forms – Fado.

The challenge Lisbon wines and, indeed, all Portuguese wines have to overcome in the collective Asian market is their general lack of exposure.

In terms of imported volumes, Portugal lags a long way behind the market behemoths such as France and Australia but also, of course, Chile, Spain, Italy, the US, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina.

The old Portuguese colony of Macau is no guaranteed market either. A lot of Portuguese wines are imported and enjoyed there but on a more local level, while the high rollers in the glitzy casinos only want the most famous of wine names on their tables as they gamble the days away.

So Portugal and the wines of Lisbon have to hope their wines can do some shouting on their behalf, as long as some adventurous buyers are willing to give them a try.

As Correia concluded, unique grapes, value for money and food matching potential are the reasons “why Portugal and this region in particular can be the next big thing in wine around the world”.

DOCS
Alenquer, Arruda and Torres Vedras Located in a cluster to the north of Lisbon are the three DOC of Alenquer, Arruda and Torres Vedras, which act (in many ways) as the wine-producing engine room of the whole area.

Alenquer and Arruda are slightly less exposed to the sea than the west-facing Torres Vedras but all three regions are known for producing fresh and aromatic white wines.

Arruda is also known for its red wines, as is Alenquer, which, most protected of all by the Serra de Montejunto hills, is a little warmer than the other two DOCs, and produces reds that are widely held to have the potential to be truly world class.

All three regions relaxed their grape restrictions in 2002 to allow a wider mix of national and international varieties as well.

Bucelas
One of Lisbon’s first denominated regions, Bucelas, to the immediate north of the capital (and on the southern border of Arruda), is the capital of the white Arinto grape. Arinto is believed to have been brought to Portugal by the Romans but the name of Bucelas derives from their use of it as a place to store grain for the legions; ‘bucelarium’.

Nonetheless, the wines from Bucelas were some of the first in Portugal to find widespread favour in England.

Although today the wine style is a lean and refreshing one, in the 16th century, production was geared towards fortified wines. Scholars think that the wine is even referenced in William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 when two bit-part characters exchange drinks with one offering the other a “cup of charneco” – Charneco being a village to this day in the Bucelas DOC.

By the 19th century, however, a style more akin to its modern counterpart had developed. General Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) had his headquarters in Bucelas during the winter of 1810-1811 (the front lines against the French were in Torres Vedras) and picked up a taste for it. He sent the wine home, where it quickly grew in popularity as ‘Lisbon’ wine and, later, ‘Portuguese Hock’ because its dry, mineral character reminded people of Rhine Riesling.

The headquarters of Casa Santos Lima

Carcavelos
Another of the ‘original’ wine regions around Lisbon (this time to the west), Carcavelos is especially renowned for its fortified wines.

This fame grew out of the association between the region and one of Portugal’s most famous political and vinous figures – Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the Marquis of Pombal.

He owned an extensive estate in the city of Oeiras, right in the heart of the modern DOC, where he grew vines, fruit and cereal crops. Naturally, for a market so obsessed with fortified wines, this was another favourite of the British market in the 19th century but the collapse of viticulture caused by phylloxera and modern urban sprawl have made this an endangered wine style, and only the Marquis’ old estate now produces any of this rare elixir.

Produced as either a red or white from nine varieties – the main red ones being Castelão and Trincadeira and the principal white being Arinto – the wines are fortified to 18%-20% with brandy from Lourinhã (see below) and sweetened with must.

The wines must age in wooden casks (from where or what type of wood doesn’t matter; oak and chestnut are used) for at least two years but as long as five is common.

Harvest time: Lisbon has a wide variety of grape types

Colares
The third and final ‘original’ and the most coastal of all the DOC, Colares is yet another unique and traditional but under-threat area.

Located near the famous surfing beach of Guincho (see boxout), the area where the vineyards of Colares used to flourish are now extremely valuable land for holiday homes and urban development.

But the hardy vines are still clinging on, and they’re some of the strangest and most alien that even hardened vineyard visitors will have ever seen.

Although some vineyards, largely the white Malvasia, are planted more traditionally in clay soils, the tough Ramisco vines are planted in what can only be described as beaches. A walk in these vineyards is like a day at the beach.

On the other hand, their aptitude for sandy soils means phylloxera never took hold here, so all of the vines are ungrafted making them doubly irreplaceable.

The whites have to spend at least six months ageing in wood (huge casks made from oak, teak and mahogany) and another three months in bottle before release.

The reds, with their high acid and acidity, require much longer ageing – a minimum of 12 months in wood and another six in bottle before release but some wineries keep their wines for as long as six to six-and-a-half years before they sell them on the market.

Encostas d’Aire
The most northernmost DOC in the region, Encostas d’Aire looks vast on a map but the total area under vine is comparatively small, with the vineyards spread out over a large area.

It is a scenic area, as with most regions in Portugal its vineyards interspersed with orchards (Lisbon is also famous for its pears, quinces and kiwi fruit) and olive groves.

The climate here is good for more ‘modern’ styles of red and white but it is also a large producer of more traditional light white wines, which are the basis of its DOC.

Lourinhã
Another region very close to the coast but one that is more noted for its fine brandies rather than its table wines because its proximity to the ocean makes the ripening of grapes very difficult.

As mentioned above, the entire Lisbon region used to be heavily involved in producing brandy for the Port trade but as that market declined so distilling became less common throughout the area.

Of all the DOCs in Lisbon, however, Lourinhã has always been the one most associated with making spirits (or ‘aguardentes’ as they are known in Portuguese).

The grape variety used to make the brandy is known in Portugal as Talia – known elsewhere as Trebbiano and Ugni Blanc, which brandy fans will know instantly as the grape used to make (or at least contribute to) Cognac and Armagnac.

Lourinhã is probably the most notable brandy most people have never heard of because it is one of just three DOC brandies in the whole of Europe (along with its two famous French counterparts).

There aren’t too many producers of this fine spirit anymore, just two large producers (the Adega Cooperative da Lourinhã and Quinta do Rol) but the spirit produced here is still used to fortify the Carcavelos wines and
is very popular in Portugal, where a splash is often added to another Portuguese obsession – coffee.

Óbidos
Another cool region is Óbidos, the result of a gap in the hills near the town, which allows the cool ocean influence to come wafting in.

Instead of distilling, however, the winemakers in Óbidos have turned their lighter-bodied whites into sparkling wines, and are quickly building a reputation as one of the best places in Portugal for fizz.

The principal white varieties in the DOC are the ubiquitous Arinto, Fernao Pires, Rabo de Ovelha and Vital.

As well as sparkling wines, Óbidos also produces red and white table wines, with the whites being fresh and aromatic with citrus aromas, and the reds full bodied, deeply coloured and well structured, thanks to the predominance of clay soil in the area (this is the region where Bombarral is located).

Monastery of Batalha