106 WINE
Wine’ s Young Upstarts
In the misty far north of Portugal, the emerald amphitheatre-shaped landscape of the Minho region could easily be mistaken for the hills of Ireland, except that it produces Portugal’ s most popular white wine, Vinho Verde. Vinho Verde means“ green wine”, but the wine is not green, just meant to be consumed while it’ s very young, or“ green.”
Vinho Verde is a simple, light, half-nut’ n’( inexpensive) low-alcohol wine featuring a bubbly spritz. Because the wine was traditionally consumed almost immediately after harvest, a few fermentation bubbles often lingered in the wine. These days the characteristic spritz is usually derived from a shot of carbon dioxide before bottling, just like Sprite or Coca-Cola. While Vinho Verde is primarily known as a white wine, the region also produces plenty of“ green wines” that are red, but they are rarely exported. With bright purple-pink color and tongue-stripping acidity, red Vinho Verde is an acquired taste, though a good foil for the region’ s oily codfish dishes.
Vines in Minho were traditionally trellised upon picturesque, overhead arbors or up trees, in part so that breezes could deter mold in this humid maritime climate, but also to make best used of farmland under the vine crops. With some 700,000 growers managing 25,000 vineyards, quality can be variable, but encouragingly, modern producers are now trellising their vines to capture wine quality rather than quantity. The wine can be produced from any of twenty-five indigenous grape varieties, but the finest are typically derived from four varieties: alvarinho, loureiro, trajadura and pedernã. Loureiro and alvarinho are amongst the best of these varieties and are being closely watched by wine connoisseurs.
One of Vinho Verde’ s greatest features is that under local regulations, its alcohol levels may not exceed 11.5 %. Its light body, low alcohol and zesty acidity make this a wine that screams for a seafood outing to Lamma Island.
Master of Wine Debra Meiburg explains why youth isn’ t wasted on the zesty wines of northern Portugal. www. jetsetter. hk