Portuguese Wine Primer #1: Vinho Verde!

Show Notes

Episode 135: Portuguese Wine Primer #1: Vinho Verde!  00:00

Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela. And we are The Wine Pair! 

If you are new to our podcast, here is a quick orientation! Each week, we explore a different wine varietal or blend—like Pinot Noir or Bordeaux or Vinho Verde — and dive into what makes it unique, special, and worth learning about. Our goal is to help you expand your wine knowledge in a fun way that regular people can understand. We also taste and review 2-3 wines under $20 each in each episode, and share our scores and recommendations to help you find great wines without breaking the bank. So, thank you for being here! And, we are proud to say that Decanter Magazine calls us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining.

So you know how I say we love to get suggestions from listeners?!? Well, we are getting some great suggestions from listeners, and I am really excited to start a new series of episodes that we will revisit periodically based on a recommendation from listener Adrienne who said we should do some episodes on Portuguese wines. So, here we are, and I am calling these episodes Portuguese Wine Primers - and it’s pronounced primmer not primer - and we are going to start this week with a primer on a much loved Portuguese wine called Vinho Verde. 

Now we’ll talk about just what the F Vinho Verde is in a little bit, but let’s take a minute to talk about wines from Portugal in general. Ok!?? 

First of all, depending on where you get your information, Portugal is the 9th or 10th largest wine producing country in the world. Which is saying something since it ranks 93rd in population. For comparison, other big wine producing countries - like the US, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc. are in the top 35 of population. Canada is in the top 40. So this is a country of about 10.5 million people punching way above its weight in wine production. 

This is also why it exports way more wine than it imports. In fact, Portugal exports nearly half of all of the wine they produce, so, again, they way over perform in wine production compared to population.

There are also a lot of different wine varieties in Portugal. While Vinho Verde, Port, and Dao may be wines that many people know, if they know anything about Portuguese wines, there are over 250 indigenous grape varieties in the country, making Portugal one of the more unique wine regions on the planet. Which is round, by the way. And, they have been making wine in Portugal going all the way back to Roman times. So that’s a long time!

A few other interesting notes about Portuguese wines - Portugal is sometimes a place people go to to have a more affordable, or reasonably priced if you will, vacation in a very beautiful place, and that is sort of the same reputation that their wines have - affordable quality. Also, like a lot of places that have been making wine for a long time, there are a lot of wine makers that use sustainable practices - but these are not people new to sustainability. For them, sustainability has just been the way that the small producers have always made wine - before there were artificial fertilizers and things of that nature. 

So, Portuguese wine is indeed worthy of its own series, and it is definitely a place I want to visit sometime in the not so distant future. And we have tons of articles and links in our show notes if you want to learn more. And, as a special shout out we have a list of wines from Portugal under $20 from our listener Adrienne, yes, the same Adrienne who suggested we focus on Portuguese wines, and we are going to post those in our show notes because she was so kind to send them to us, so head over to our website and find this episode and you can find some great suggestions. We are going to see if we can bring in some of these wines into future episodes, and if you try any of them, let us know what you think! 

LIST FROM ADRIENNE. Here is a selection of some wines from my under $20 list that I have tried and really enjoyed! 

Whites:

• Borges NV Gatão White (Vinho Verde)
• Freire Lobo, Vigno Branco 2021 (Dão)
• Cabriz Dão Colheita Seleccionada White 2019
• Arca Nova Vinho Verde Branco 2019
• Portada Branco Reserva 2018
• Raw Bar Branco 2022

Red:

• Monte da Vigia Reserva 2017
• Coutada Velha, Signature Tinto 2020
• Portada Winemakers Selection Tinto 2017
• Niepoort Nat Cool 2019 (Baga)
• Montalto Cepa Pura Baga 2017
• Paxis Red Blend (Bulldog) 2013
• Fiuza Reserva Alicante Bouschet Premium 2016
• Quinta de Porrais Tinto

But today, we are going to focus on Vinho Verde wine, which is a fun and fruity white wine, even though the name makes it sound like it’s green, and we have two Vinho Verdes we are going to try and review to see if they are worth seeking out, and we have some more fun facts and information to learn about Vinho Verde . . . 

But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug.

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And we want to make content you care about and you like, so send us a note and tell us what you like and don’t like, if there are wines you want us to try or wine making areas of the world you are curious about - and we’ll take care of it! Like we are today. And a big shout out to listener Christine - and she is great about reaching out in different ways, like via the text link in our episodes or on Spotify - and she let us know after our Chardonnay episode that she is still not a fan of Chardonnay, but does like a good White Bordeaux, and we agree! And she also shared some food and wine pairings she was having and all sorts of other fun stuff, so thank you, Christine! We also got a nice note from Bud who hasn’t reached out to us for a while, and he asked us to make sure he got on our newsletter list, so I did that and send the last one along to him, and he told us about some rosé wines from Total Wine that he likes and some Trader Joe’s wines, including a Vinho Verde from there called Espiral that he really likes and is under $10, so maybe that is one you can check out, too, if the two we have today don’t make the grade.

And please, all of you out there in listening land, keep the comments and ideas coming! We absolutely love it!

And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should recommend The Wine Pair Podcast to so we can keep growing listeners. This week, we want you to recommend us to anyone who is hoping to squeeze the last drops out of summer and wants to still find a good summer wine. There’s still time!!!

ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://www.thewinesociety.com/discover/explore/regional-guides/portuguese-wine-ultimate-guide 
• https://www.winalist.com/blog/portugal-wine-region/guide-to-best-portuguese-wines#:~:text=Though%20it's%20not%20widely%20known,opportunity%20that%20comes%20your%20way. 
• https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/ 
• https://asharedpassion.com/en/wines-from-portugal/ 
• 10 Things You Don't Know About Portuguese Wine | HuffPost Life
• The Wine Industry: 5 Interesting Facts About Wines in Portugal - Friendly Local Guides Blog
• 5 Facts About Portuguese Wine | Wine Tourism in Portugal (winetourismportugal.com)
• 5 Fun Facts About Portuguese Wines | by Friendly Local Guides | Medium

Topic: WTF is Vinho Verde? 11:10

So, Carmela, let’s learn more about what the F Vinho Verde is, and why we should care about it, shall we?

First, Vinho Verde is the name for the region the wine is made in, not for a particular grape the wine is made from. So, this is one of those wines that you will only find called Vinho Verde if it is from the region of Vinho Verde in Portugal - and this kind of naming is confusing but is not at all uncommon in European wines. Which we have mentioned before. 

Vinho Verde is in the very north and west part of Portugal, bordering on the Galacia area of Spain. The area used to be called Minho, but in 1908 the area was named the “Vinho Verde Region” and the DOC designation, which is what the officially and legally recognized wine area is called in Portugal, same as in Italy, was made official in 1984

The wine is actually made from a combination of grapes, and although there are 19 grapes that are allowed, and I am not going to go through them all but you kind find out if you want by checking out links in our show notes, but the DOC recommends the following 7 grapes for the white wine - and yes, there are red and rosé Vinho Verde as well, but we are only focusing on the white today and over 85% of the wine from the area is white - and those grapes are Alvarinho (yes, this is the same grape that the Spanish wine Albariño is made from), Arinto, Avesso, Azal, Batoca, Loureiro, and Trajadura.

Why is it called Vinho Verde you may ask, because verde means green in Spanish, even though the wine is not green? Well, it turns out there is no clear answer. According to a website called Wines of Portugal, which I would expect knows what the hell they are talking about and which you can also find a link to in our show notes, they say the following: “Some say that the designation "Verde"(green) is due to the acidity and freshness characteristic of Vinho Verde and that it reminds one of unripe fruit. Others say that this is explained by the fact that the wine is produced in a region very rich in vegetation and is therefore very green even in winter.”

I’ll just say this - the wine ain’t green, although it is often found in green tinted bottles. So, maybe that’s why.

A couple of interesting things about Vinho Verde. First, it is usually, but not always, effervescent, but not to the point of being a sparkling wine. It is more often described as having a slight spritz of carbonation, and I kind of think about it like a soda or soda pop, whatever you want to call it, that has been opened and resealed and drank the next day. It still has fizz, but it’s not popping with carbonation. Originally, the fizz came from a little bit of sugar being left in the wine when it was bottled and not quite done fermenting, but today, most winemakers add bubbles artificially to the wine - which seems like cheating, but oh well. And, some can be much more fizzy than others. So there. 

Another interesting thing is that it can really run the gamut from an off-dry, or in other words semi-sweet wine, to a dry wine. We say this a lot, but you can generally tell if a white wine is sweet or not based on the alcohol level - lower alcohol, usually below 11% means the wine is on the sweet side. And, today, we have one wine that is definitely off-dry meaning sweet and one that is dry, so this will be a good comparison.

Vinho Verde is considered a great summer wine, as we said, because it is fresh tasting and crisp and should be served super cold. It is also usually not a very expensive wine, and you should be able to find it around $10 or less pretty easily, so that is fun, it can just be picked up off the shelf and enjoyed without worrying about aging, often has a screw cap rather than a cork,  and so, for all of these reasons, we would consider it an awesome picnic wine. 

So, on that note, I think it’s time to learn a little more about the specific wines we are drinking today. Whaddya say?

ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinho_Verde 
• https://winesofportugal.com/en/discover/wine-regions/vinho-verde/ 
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2023/06/22/vinho-verde-what-to-know/ 
• https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/7-things-you-need-to-know-about-vinho-verde/ 

Vinho Verde Wines We Chose for This Episode 18:55

As usual, both of the wines we have chosen for this episode are under $20, and they should be relatively easy to find because I bought one of them on wine.com, and another one I found at a local Kroger grocery store called Fred Meyer. Which, by the way, can feel pretty stabby at times. 

I will say that Vinho Verde should be easy to find, and most grocery stores will have it, but if there is not a Portuguese wine section or a large white wine section, you may find it lurking on the bottom shelf, mostly because of the price range, not because of the quality. 

The first wine we are going to drink today is the dry wine, and it is called Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde and it is from the 2022 vintage. This wine had a tech sheet online, and you know I love a good tech sheet and you can find a link to it in our show notes, and this wine is not a blend, but rather 100% Loureiro as you may assume from the bottle if you knew that one of the grapes in Vinho Verde is Loureiro, which you do now. The wine is 12.5% alcohol, so definitely dry, and is considered a “bright and lively” wine. And it got a 88 rating and a Best Buy designation from Wine Enthusiast - it was less than $10 - and an 88 from James Suckling, which is remarkable because he never gives a rating below 90.

The wine is not vegan - the winery says that they use an animal based fining agent, so probably egg based, and it is actually left on the skins for 4 to 6 hours before it is fermented in stainless steel. Remember, fining is what some wineries and winemakers use to create a clearer wine because any particles stick to the fining agent and drop to the bottom of the container they are in, and then the wine is filtered. 

The next wine we are going to try is a definite grocery store staple and it is called Casal Garcia Vinho Verde and this one is from 2022. The Casal Garcia is one I see all over the place with a blue label, and it is on the sweet side, or off-dry category, at only 9.5% alcohol. Remember, again, you can tell if a wine is going to be sweet or dry based on the alcohol content. Anything under 11.5% or 12% is getting on the sweet side, and under 10% is getting pretty darn sweet.

You can also find a technical sheet for this wine online, but as is sometimes the case with these larger producers, they don’t give a ton of valuable detail. What I can tell you is this wine is a blend of a few different grapes, but they do not give you the exact blend, which always makes me a little suspicious. The grapes they use are Trajadura, Loureiro, Arinto and Fernão Pires. So, where the last one was only Loureiro, this one again is a blend of that grape and 3 others.

This wine often has a sticker with a 90 rating from James Suckling which, first of all, is nothing to brag about, and second of all was from the 2020 vintage, not this vintage, although it still has the sticker on it, which, again, feels like cheating. They also talk about how you should serve this wine fridge cold, which is true for all Vinho Verde wines, so drink them nice and cold, and they say that you should serve it within two years, so this on, as a 2022 needs to be consumed soon! We rescued it!

But, I think that is enough information - let’s get to drinking! We’ll take a quick break and be right back. And, if you have these wines or similar wines, drink along with us! Like Adrienne said she would so she is getting extra bonus participation points. 

ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://www.jportugalramos.com/media//1/DOCUMENTOS/238/12432359502791x.pdf 
• https://www.winebow.com/our-brands/j-portugal-ramos/j-portugal-ramos-vinho-verde-loureiro/2023 
• https://www.casalgarcia.com/en/wines/casal-garcia-white/ 

2022 Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde, 2022 Casal Garcia Vinho Verde Wine Tasting, Pairing, and Review 23:55

Wine: Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. We may be compensated if you purchase.)
Region: Portugal, Vinho Verde
Year: 2022
Price: $9.99 
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 12.5%
Grapes: 100% Loureiro
Professional Rating: WE 88, JS 88

What we tasted and smelled in this Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde:

• On the nose: Bright, apples cider, ripe pear, stone fruit, peach, lemony, vanilla, marshmallow
• In the mouth: Citrus, lemon, Granny Smith apple, acidic, crisp, a sipper and crowd pleaser, not a serious wine, lemon flavored water, not complicated

Food to pair with this Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde: Spicy food, egg rolls, salty and spicy and crunchy foods, appetizer wine
 
As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and a 5 or 6 means we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it. 

Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 7/10
• Carmela: 7/10

Wine: Casal Garcia Vinho Verde
Region: Portugal, Vinho Verde
Year: 2022
Price: $8.99
Retailer: Fred Meyer (Kroger)
Alcohol: 9.5%
Grapes: Trajadura, Loureiro, Arinto and Fernão Pires

What we tasted and smelled in this Casal Garcia Vinho Verde:

• On the nose: Vegetal, dirt, white flower, orange citrus, pink grapefruit, Ivory soap
• In the mouth: Soapy, fizzy, lemon sorbet, grapefruit sorbet, not cloying sweet, Granny Smith apple, apple pie, orange sorbet

Food to pair with this Casal Garcia Vinho Verde: After dinner wine with cheese and fruit, appetizer wine, may put ice into it to cut some of the sugar, dark chocolate, vanilla ice cream, focaccia, calzone

Casal Garcia Vinho Verde Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 6/10
• Carmela: 6/10

Which one of these are you finishing tonight?

• Carmela: Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde
• Joe: Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde

Taste profiles expected from Vinho Verde   35:38

• General 
  • Wine Folly: Lemonade, Pink Grapefruit, Lime Zest, Yellow Apple, White Blossom
• Joao Portugal Ramos Loureiro Vinho Verde
  • Winery: Fresh and elegant aroma, with citrus and floral notes combined with a pronounced minerality and long intense finish.
  • WE: The soft style of Loureiro is well evident in this creamy, ripe wine. It has a crisp edge to the white fruits and cool freshness.
  • JS: Lemon, kiwi fruit and sea breeze on the nose. Fresh and lemony with light body and a crisp finish.
• Casal Garcia Vinho Verde
  • Winery: Casal Garcia is a smooth wine that stands out for its freshness, with aromas of citrus and tropical fruits  . .  is known for being a light, fresh and cheerful wine,
  • WE (older): This wine is all bright, clean fruit and acidity. It's just off dry, with a slight spritz and a lively texture
  • JS (older): Very typical Vinho Verde with the green-wine character of tangy and energetic acidity and lots of citrusy fruit. Light and nice. Serve very cold! Drink now

What do you think about Vinho Verde?

Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 38:02

Ok, so, Carmela, it’s time for us to go, but before we do, we want to thank you very much for listening to us - and if you haven’t done so yet, now would be the perfect time to subscribe to our podcast and also a fantastic time to leave us a nice rating and review on our website or Apple podcasts or other podcast service - and it is an awesome and free way to support us and help us grow listeners.

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Alright, with that, we are going to sign off, so thanks again, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.

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