| Portuguese Wine Search |
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Page 1 of 8 IBERIAN REDLINE Two intrepid oenophiles blast through Europe's new vine country by motorbike to find out if Portuguese vino tinto is ready for the world palate. One week and 100 bottles later, the inescapable answer: Damn straight! Three days and 29 bottles of wine after arriving in Portugal, my buddy Tim and I are seated at a large round table with crisp linen in the far corner of the Refúgio da Vila hotel-restaurant in the town of Portel. The waiters have left for the night, the rest of the patrons have gone to bed, and dozens of crystal glasses sit in front of us all half-full of wine. Tim and I are taking a much-needed break from our rigorous tour of wineries — by tasting wine.
 ACCESS >Fly TAP Portugal airlines (flytap.com) from New York City directly to Lisbon. Round-trip fares from $800. LODGING >Casa do Terreiro do Poço is a magnificent hotel in Borba (a town with white ... Tim swirls his glass, smells, drinks. "Fun party, too bad the stereo broke," he replies. I say, "Beautiful boat, small sails." Tim says, "Porch-pounder." "I now understand why some people worry that heaven is boring." "Some day, when I'm old and the head of a wonderful family and I've done all I wanted to do, I still won't like this wine." We laugh and grab fresh stemware. We're playing Wine Snob for fun because we haven't yet had a chance to really break the neck off any bottles. Most everything we've tasted in the wineries surrounding the south-central Portuguese town of Évora has been pretty damn good. And the between times haven't been bad either. Astride 1200cc Buell Ulysses motorcycles, we've hossed from one winery to another, ripping along country roads in the dusty, rolling hills southeast of Lisbon, visiting two producers a day, sampling every vintage in the cellars, and jotting mostly exuberant notes about delicate aromas and soft tannins. If we're not pausing, we'll spit and get back on the bikes, maybe detour down a dirt road to a castle. If we're staying awhile, we'll raise full glasses of the finest reserva over a meal with the winemaker.
Our "job," as the IRS will
understand it, is to track down the next great bottle of red. Friends
and colleagues doubt we'll find it in Portugal — we know better.
After all, oenophiles from The New York Times and the World Atlas of
Wine have begun pegging Portugal as heir apparent to Australia and
Argentina, South Africa and Chile, even Spain. |
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