A storage room at Adega Zé Maria
Carlos Ourives and Mário Bernardo.
“The world knows Beaujolais Nouveau,” states Rui Raposo, the president of the town of Vidigueira, Portugal. He’s describing the cult-favorite French white wine– the very first of every vintage, fermented for just a few weeks before it’s launched with a big national celebration in November– for a reason. His corner of the Alentejo has a similarly historical and eccentric wine tradition, but one that is hardly known outside the area.
Raposo wants to change that. “What we have is similar,” he states. “It’s fantastic quality. Individuals have to wait on the next year. With this, we have some sustainability, and we have something the world can know.”
Vidigueira’s talha red wine tradition– Portuguese winemakers don’t wish to equate it, however if one did, would be something like “clay pot white wine’– dates from Roman times. Historically, wineries were constructed with large arched windows, through which grapes were discarded onto a sloping floor. There, they would be crushed and tread on their method into holes in the center that dropped them into the clay vessels.
Talhas on display at the brand-new interpretive center
Carlos Ourives and Mário Bernardo.
The talhas you see around the Alentejo don’t return to the first century, naturally. But they have actually still seen generations of winemaking and have a beguiling patina. Because of this, it’s tempting to take a look at them and state, Okay, so this is amphora red wine– red wine that’s aged in clay pots. It’s a design that’s existed because winemaking originated in Georgia some 8,000 years earlier and has just recently become stylish all over the world, with production from Australia to the United States.
That’s not wrong, however it’s inadequate. While amphora red wines are aged in clay (often after conventional fermentation in stainless-steel), talha wines are mad experiments in which the grapes undergo their whole evolution in the clay vessels. Wine makers can climb ladders to reach inside with long paddles to move the grapes around and punch down the solids that increase into a cap throughout fermentation. However they can’t taste it, and they can’t intervene. At the end of the procedure, they unscrew a stopper, place a spigot and fill little tasting glasses.
This is why the very first tasting– in early November similar to Beaujolais Nouveau, and particularly on the celebration day of Saint Martin, another factor for a party– is a huge deal. It’s always a surprise. Or as talha winemaker Ruben Honrado puts it, “No one understands what they’re doing.”
Red wine spigots in talhas
Carlos Ourives and Mário Bernardo.
He’s exaggerating, obviously, however he’s best that “nobody really understands the secret to vinho da talha. People put grapes in the talha and await the magic to occur.” Some opt for better hygiene while others accept all the nature that enters into wine making. They can utilize more stems or less or none. The clay pots themselves have different ages, quantities of use and even sizes and shapes, depending on who made them. The ones closer to the windows can be entirely different from those in the corner of the space. The outcomes are never ever consistent.
“There’s a big interest to taste them on November 11,” continues Honrado. “There’s always one that’s the favorite, which’s the one you share with your loved ones and neighbors.”
Now they’re sharing it with global visitors, thanks in part to the efforts of Raposo and his associates at the Rota do Vinho da Talha (path of talha wine) effort. The point is to raise awareness– and bring a little that Beaujolais cachet– about the red wines and the area.
Gerações da Talha
Carlos Ourives and Mário Bernardo.
First, the wine making commission of the Alentejo developed the equivalent of a DOC for local talha red wines. Now they have a snazzy new interpretive center, loaded with archival photographs, vintage tools, interactive exhibitions, a little bit of VR and audio trips in a range of languages (consisting of a rather abundant British-accented English). The marketers also put together the route of talha white wine, which highlights regional attractions like the unspoiled and restored first century Roman ruins at São Cucufate, and a number of wineries and dining establishments.
It belongs to the area’s application for acknowledgment as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, something that is intended to bring tourist to the region. And likewise bring regional regard to the custom– it deserves keeping in mind that the videos in the interpretive center are heavy on gentlemen of a specific age, and the hope is that new generations will want to continue the work. It’s something that appears to be dealing with one of the region’s other Intangible Cultural Heritages, Cante Alentejano, a kind of polyphonic singing.
Possibly that all sounds too major. Mainly, the route is a bargain of enjoyable. The white wines, which have actually the oxidized color and slightly funky attributes of orange red wines, have enhanced to the point where they can be bottled and delighted in throughout the year. A couple of spots along the way are modern, like that interpretive center and the light-filled tasting space at the Adega Cooperativa Vidigueira, the region’s cooperative winery.
Cante Alentejano singers at Gerações da Talha
Carlos Ourives and Mário Bernardo.
But stepping into Gerações da Talha, in Vila de Frades, advises you of the namesake generations (it’s presently run by the 4th, Teresa Caeiro), with its reception room where the walls are lined with old talhas and the ceiling arches are hung with grapes, and where the outside suppers take place at long picnic tables with Cante Alentejano singers having a fun time with their art and the regional red wine. They have actually also entered into wine tourist just recently, with tastings, picnics among the 100-year-old vineyards, and red wine boat tours on neighboring Lake Alqueva.
Run for a very long time by another family, the nearby Honrado includes a cellar-museum in a hundred-year-old winery and tavern, where they set some gorgeous tables and load them with Alentejo sausages, fresh cheeses, pork cheeks, hearty bean stews and other local meals. (They can likewise do a basic red wine tasting with simply a snack or 2.)
A tasting at Honrado
Ruben Honrado
And after that there’s Adega Zé Galante, which appears not to have actually changed given that its name proprietor was born in that same house many years back. He’s still making wine in talhas– simply as his grandpa did in the 19th century– along the sides of the comfortable dining room, and now he likewise puts together snacks and tastings for groups who organize it beforehand.
Unlike many individuals along the route, Galante doesn’t speak much English. However it doesn’t matter. He’s hosted international groups and it all exercises. Great food, unusual red wine, Portuguese hospitality and celebratory customs are a universal language.