The Anti-Wine-Snob

[Roy Hersh]

Living in Porto now, has changed the way I view Portuguese wines a bit. I still drink many high end and tons of magnums from my collection, but there is now an additional direction my experimentation has gone.

The two most prominent supermarket chains found all over Porto have 90% of their wines sub-10 Euros. Continente and Pingo Doce and local grocery stores that are found in nearly every neighborhood at least in the north, but throughout most of PT, this is true too. Yes, there are Corte Ingles and others that can be found, but they are far more spread out and nowhere near as prominent.

Watching what people are grabbing from wine shelves has become a 10-15 minute spying operation whenever I am in the grocery store. I noticed several people picking up under 5 Euro bottles and over the past month, notice more and more are in the sub-5 by far, more than the above 5 euro bottles.

I have begun to buy a bunch of whites and reds below % Euros to see what translates into ridiculously low quality for equal money in the USA. But instead of finding them undrinkable, most are actually "decent" and not something I rush to pour down the drain. I am not sure if they can be found outside of Portugal or not.

One of the better reds from this group although big and a bit jammy, (but what do you want for 4 euros?) is an Alentejo tinto: Monsaraz "Tradicao" I was a bit hesitant at 14.5% abv, and for the first 15 minutes it was a bit much in terms of the alcohol, but as it mellowed the longer the bottle was open (2 hours in all) with no decanting, the fruit integrated. A nice blend of Trincadeira, Aragonez and Alicante Bouschet. The fruit is big and bold and reminds me of a spicy Australian Shiraz in a way, in a baby-fat youthful exuberant way. I had to peel grape flesh off my tongue at some point, nice tannins, a bit mild in the acidity, but brash young fruit. Cabrito would have done this proud. I was sipping it late night on its own to pay close attention. 85-86 points and all in all, quite tasty. Simple and straightforward but a very nice long finish and this did close out as it opened up, to 86 points. The QPR is ridiculous and I dare say that there is just about NOTHING under twice the price ($8 USD) that could deliver this quality in a red wine.

[Andy Velebil]

I wish I could find some nice inexpensive PT wines here. One thing I always like about being “in country” is finding those well price but good wines one can’t find stateside. Do report on the nice values you find.