Friday, 19 December 2014
Thursday, 18 December 2014
Portugal is shaking up the wine world - USA TODAY
Portugal is shaking up the wine world:
LISBON, Portugal — The world's greatest wine region? If you're thinking Bordeaux, Burgundy or Napa Valley, it may be time to think again.
Wines from Portugal's Douro Valley claimed three of the top four places in Wine Spectator's 2014 top 100 ranking — including the No. 1 spot awarded to Dow's 2011 Vintage Port. "It's been famous for producing extraordinary ports for over 300 years and it's got a unique beauty all its own," says Paul Symington, whose family produces the top wine. "There are many superlatives that you can apply to the Douro. Many of us argue it's the most beautiful wine-growing area in the world."
Although the Douro is still best known for its ports — wines fortified with brandy traditionally served before or after a meal — the region's table wines are also generating excitement in the world of wine.Third on Wine Spectator's list is the Chryseia red wine, also produced by the Symington family in collaboration with French winemaker Bruno Prats.
In fourth place came another red from higher up the Douro River: the Quinta do Vale Meao 2011, described by Wine Spectator as "a lush, seductive red, filled to the brim with an array of dark fruit." "For the last few years, a whole bunch of people have been making some really serious red and white wines here," Symington said in an interview. "To get the Wine Spectator, which is comfortably and by a country mile the most powerful wine magazine in the world, to turn a spotlight on the Douro for its red wines as well as its great port, is a remarkable achievement."
All three of the top wines were from 2011. That was an exceptional year for the vineyards that rise on terraced hillsides from the banks of the Douro as it snakes 130 miles through northern Portugal from the Spanish border toward the old city of Oporto on the Atlantic Ocean.
The success is no flash-in-the-pan. Although the Douro is one of the world's oldest demarcated wine regions, dating back to 1756, the international reputation of its table wines began to take off in the 1990s, when producers started to move away from the centuries-old reliance on port wine to turn out quality dry reds and whites. Improved refrigeration techniques and the scrapping of arcane laws designed to protect traditional port producers triggered the change, says Mario Negreiros, who revived his family wine business in 2004. It freed producers to exploit the region's unique attributes for producing table wines. "It's a mountain wine region. It's got micro-climates and micro-micro-climates. On the same vineyard you can have two slopes with completely different characteristics," says the journalist-turned-producer of smooth, dark reds bearing the Negreiros family name. Proximity to the river also affects the wines variety in the soils. "Then there's the unique winemaking tradition," he adds. "All that contributes to the richness of the wines that are made there. It's a complex region, complex like the wine that it produces."
The region's success in developing table wines is also partly explained by the emergence of a new generation of oenologists, or winemaking experts, coming out of the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro in the wine-growing region's main city of Vila Real. "They started introducing new techniques and new ideas and we all began to realize we could take the same grape varieties that we were using to make these great and historical ports and make some really interesting red wines," Symington says. "That's really what has captured people's imagination." The university's alumni include Rui Cunha, a renowned oenologist who's reviving quality wine production at the historic Quinta da Boavista estate in collaboration with French winemaker Jean-Claude Berrouet, famed for his work on the legendary Petrus wines in Bordeaux. "The Douro has everything," Cunha said in a telephone interview. "It has history, it has great soil, it's got unique grape varieties, it's got a fantastic climate. It all means we can produce very distinct wines of great quality." "It takes time for a wine region to really affirm itself," he added, "so it's amazing the international recognition the Douro is getting when you consider that the transformation of the region into a producer of red and white table wines only got underway in the 1990s."
Beyond its great winemaking conditions, the region is uniquely beautiful. The slow-moving Douro River — whose name means "golden" in Portuguese — meanders through vine-covered hills dotted with stately white-painted quintas, or manors, built by the old wine-producing families. UNESCO declared the region a World Heritage site in 2001.
Wine tourism is gathering pace with the opening of wine hotels such as Quinta do Vallado and The Yeatman, set among the wine lodges where port has been blended and stored for centuries just across the river from Oporto's historic center, another World Heritage site. Many of the port lodges carry the names of the old families, including Taylor, Graham and Cockburn, that once dominated the export of the sweet, fortified wines to Britain. Port has been a favored tipple there since the early 1700s, when supplies of wine from France were interrupted by war.
Paul Symington's Scottish great-grandfather married into one of the Anglo-Portuguese port wine dynasties after moving to Oporto in 1882. Five generations on, the Symingtons are the region's biggest vineyard owners, running a business with a $105 million turnover. This year, the Symingtons released 650 bottles of a 130-year-old port wine called Ne Oublie (Don't Forget) as a tribute to their Scottish ancestor. It retails at around $7,000 a bottle. That wasn't on the Wine Spectator top 100 list, which was selected from 18,000 wines sampled by the New York-based magazine's reviewers during the year. Prices of the winning Dow's vintage port have more than doubled to over $250 in Portuguese stores since its ranking was announced last month.
Still, many of the region's great wines are a bargain compared to prices charged by French and Italian competitors. The Portal Colheita 2011 red, which ranked 27th in Wine Spectator's top 100, can be snapped up online for $15 a bottle. Douro winemakers are convinced the current surge in international interest is just the start. "This is going to continue," says Cunha, whose first Quinta da Boavista wines are due to hit the market in 2016. "This international recognition is giving our producers more strength to keep producing these great wines. That's what we're here for."
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LISBON, Portugal — The world's greatest wine region? If you're thinking Bordeaux, Burgundy or Napa Valley, it may be time to think again.
Wines from Portugal's Douro Valley claimed three of the top four places in Wine Spectator's 2014 top 100 ranking — including the No. 1 spot awarded to Dow's 2011 Vintage Port. "It's been famous for producing extraordinary ports for over 300 years and it's got a unique beauty all its own," says Paul Symington, whose family produces the top wine. "There are many superlatives that you can apply to the Douro. Many of us argue it's the most beautiful wine-growing area in the world."
Although the Douro is still best known for its ports — wines fortified with brandy traditionally served before or after a meal — the region's table wines are also generating excitement in the world of wine.Third on Wine Spectator's list is the Chryseia red wine, also produced by the Symington family in collaboration with French winemaker Bruno Prats.
In fourth place came another red from higher up the Douro River: the Quinta do Vale Meao 2011, described by Wine Spectator as "a lush, seductive red, filled to the brim with an array of dark fruit." "For the last few years, a whole bunch of people have been making some really serious red and white wines here," Symington said in an interview. "To get the Wine Spectator, which is comfortably and by a country mile the most powerful wine magazine in the world, to turn a spotlight on the Douro for its red wines as well as its great port, is a remarkable achievement."
All three of the top wines were from 2011. That was an exceptional year for the vineyards that rise on terraced hillsides from the banks of the Douro as it snakes 130 miles through northern Portugal from the Spanish border toward the old city of Oporto on the Atlantic Ocean.
The success is no flash-in-the-pan. Although the Douro is one of the world's oldest demarcated wine regions, dating back to 1756, the international reputation of its table wines began to take off in the 1990s, when producers started to move away from the centuries-old reliance on port wine to turn out quality dry reds and whites. Improved refrigeration techniques and the scrapping of arcane laws designed to protect traditional port producers triggered the change, says Mario Negreiros, who revived his family wine business in 2004. It freed producers to exploit the region's unique attributes for producing table wines. "It's a mountain wine region. It's got micro-climates and micro-micro-climates. On the same vineyard you can have two slopes with completely different characteristics," says the journalist-turned-producer of smooth, dark reds bearing the Negreiros family name. Proximity to the river also affects the wines variety in the soils. "Then there's the unique winemaking tradition," he adds. "All that contributes to the richness of the wines that are made there. It's a complex region, complex like the wine that it produces."
The region's success in developing table wines is also partly explained by the emergence of a new generation of oenologists, or winemaking experts, coming out of the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro in the wine-growing region's main city of Vila Real. "They started introducing new techniques and new ideas and we all began to realize we could take the same grape varieties that we were using to make these great and historical ports and make some really interesting red wines," Symington says. "That's really what has captured people's imagination." The university's alumni include Rui Cunha, a renowned oenologist who's reviving quality wine production at the historic Quinta da Boavista estate in collaboration with French winemaker Jean-Claude Berrouet, famed for his work on the legendary Petrus wines in Bordeaux. "The Douro has everything," Cunha said in a telephone interview. "It has history, it has great soil, it's got unique grape varieties, it's got a fantastic climate. It all means we can produce very distinct wines of great quality." "It takes time for a wine region to really affirm itself," he added, "so it's amazing the international recognition the Douro is getting when you consider that the transformation of the region into a producer of red and white table wines only got underway in the 1990s."
Beyond its great winemaking conditions, the region is uniquely beautiful. The slow-moving Douro River — whose name means "golden" in Portuguese — meanders through vine-covered hills dotted with stately white-painted quintas, or manors, built by the old wine-producing families. UNESCO declared the region a World Heritage site in 2001.
Wine tourism is gathering pace with the opening of wine hotels such as Quinta do Vallado and The Yeatman, set among the wine lodges where port has been blended and stored for centuries just across the river from Oporto's historic center, another World Heritage site. Many of the port lodges carry the names of the old families, including Taylor, Graham and Cockburn, that once dominated the export of the sweet, fortified wines to Britain. Port has been a favored tipple there since the early 1700s, when supplies of wine from France were interrupted by war.
Paul Symington's Scottish great-grandfather married into one of the Anglo-Portuguese port wine dynasties after moving to Oporto in 1882. Five generations on, the Symingtons are the region's biggest vineyard owners, running a business with a $105 million turnover. This year, the Symingtons released 650 bottles of a 130-year-old port wine called Ne Oublie (Don't Forget) as a tribute to their Scottish ancestor. It retails at around $7,000 a bottle. That wasn't on the Wine Spectator top 100 list, which was selected from 18,000 wines sampled by the New York-based magazine's reviewers during the year. Prices of the winning Dow's vintage port have more than doubled to over $250 in Portuguese stores since its ranking was announced last month.
Still, many of the region's great wines are a bargain compared to prices charged by French and Italian competitors. The Portal Colheita 2011 red, which ranked 27th in Wine Spectator's top 100, can be snapped up online for $15 a bottle. Douro winemakers are convinced the current surge in international interest is just the start. "This is going to continue," says Cunha, whose first Quinta da Boavista wines are due to hit the market in 2016. "This international recognition is giving our producers more strength to keep producing these great wines. That's what we're here for."
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Thursday, 23 October 2014
Tuesday, 19 August 2014
Monday, 11 August 2014
Sunday, 10 August 2014
Europe Winners 2014 — World Travel Awards
Portugal clinches 16 Awards
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Wednesday, 6 August 2014
Thursday, 31 July 2014
A guide to Portugal’s Alentejo region, home of Europe’s finest beaches | Travel | The Guardian
A guide to Portugal’s Alentejo region, home of Europe’s finest beaches | Travel | The Guardian
Praia da Zambujeira, Portugal. Photograph: Municipio Odemira/Turismo do Alentejo
Herdade da Nespereira windmill house, Alentejo, Portugal. Photograph: PR
Cerca do Sul guest house is painted in the traditional Alentejo colours of white with a blue trim.
Read full article in:
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Praia da Zambujeira, Portugal. Photograph: Municipio Odemira/Turismo do Alentejo
Herdade da Nespereira windmill house, Alentejo, Portugal. Photograph: PR
Cerca do Sul guest house is painted in the traditional Alentejo colours of white with a blue trim.
Read full article in:
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Wednesday, 30 July 2014
Lello Bookstore: The Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World | BOOK RIOT
Lello Bookstore: The Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World | BOOK RIOT
"Little did I know that when I went looking for the oldest bookstore in the world, I would find, just up the coast of the same country, what could very well be the most beautiful bookstore in the world. The Lello Bookstore was built in 1906 in Porto, Portugal by The Lello Brothers (Antonio and Jose) who formerly owned another bookstore a few streets away. Their new bookstore is one of the most ornate bookstores in the world, mixing Neo-Gothic and Art Dec elements (especially the facade, pictured below). Carved wood ceilings, a stain-glassed roof, an undulating, opulent red staircase, and even a built-in wheel-barrow on rails for moving the store’s 120,000 all make the Lello seem like the bookstore out of some fantasy-world (J.K. Rowling herself lived in Porto for a short while)."
by Jeff
"Little did I know that when I went looking for the oldest bookstore in the world, I would find, just up the coast of the same country, what could very well be the most beautiful bookstore in the world. The Lello Bookstore was built in 1906 in Porto, Portugal by The Lello Brothers (Antonio and Jose) who formerly owned another bookstore a few streets away. Their new bookstore is one of the most ornate bookstores in the world, mixing Neo-Gothic and Art Dec elements (especially the facade, pictured below). Carved wood ceilings, a stain-glassed roof, an undulating, opulent red staircase, and even a built-in wheel-barrow on rails for moving the store’s 120,000 all make the Lello seem like the bookstore out of some fantasy-world (J.K. Rowling herself lived in Porto for a short while)."
by Jeff
About Jeff
Jeff O'Neal is the editor of Book Riot. He also co-hosts The Book Riot Podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @readingape
All images credit to http://bookriot.com/
Full report in http://bookriot.com/2013/08/26/lello-bookstore-the-most-beautiful-bookstore-in-the-world/
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Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Lisbon farewell
Three queens of the sea (Queen Mary, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II) leaving what is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and being blessed by Lisbon's own statue of Christ (Cristo Rei) .
Saturday, 29 March 2014
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Daily Life In Portugal: A Peak Inside The Peninsula's Magical Beauty
From The Huffington Post :
Daily Life In Portugal: A Peak Inside The Peninsula's Magical Beauty
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Daily Life In Portugal: A Peak Inside The Peninsula's Magical Beauty
- A model holds a dog by a leash as she waits for her turn to enter the catwalk during the recording of a Portuguese soap opera at Lisbon's Restauradores square, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014. Soap operas have been popular in Portugal since the first one was broadcasted at the Portuguese public television in 1977. (Francisco Seco/AP)
- A woman looks at pictures and paintings placed in frames during a street exhibition at Lisbon's Comercio square, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. (Francisco Seco/AP)
- A woman jogs along the Atlantic seafront on a chilly winter day in the northern beach town of Lavadores, Vila Nova de Gaia, on the outskirts of Porto, Portugal, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014. (Paulo Duarte/AP)
- Young boys play with waves breaking at Tagus' Ribeira das Naus or Vessels Riverbank as the sun sets in Lisbon, Wednesday, March 5, 2014. (Francisco Seco/AP)
Francisco Seco/AP
Arnaldo Cunha is silhouetted while fishing under the April 25th bridge as a cargo ship sails down the Tagus river shrouded in fog, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in Lisbon. (Francisco Seco/AP)- Fishes are placed on a net for drying at the beach on January 5, 2014 in Nazare, Portugal. (Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
- Pedestrians cross tram tracks on a shopping street in central Lisbon, Portugal, on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014. (Mario Proenca/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
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