Rest of Portugal - Red
These ‘rest of’ categories often cover many regions, so we’re used to pretty varied feedback from our judges. But even so, this was something else.
Some teams loved their wines, while others could barely find one medal-worthy entry from a flight of ten. Some liked the cheap and expensive wines, others raved about the mid-priced ones.
This, in other words, was a real curate’s egg of a category – and probably the one with the highest ratio of actively bad wines anywhere in this year’s competition. Our tasters picked up recurring problems: too much sweetness but not enough actual flavour, high acidity and often stalky tannins.
It all spoke of work needing to be done in both vineyard and winery, and there were a high number of wines in the early stages that were removed without a medal, or attained a Commended, but stopped short of silverware.
In the second round of judging, however, the feedback was a lot more positive. Once the (many) substandard wines had gone, what was left was often extremely good for the money.
From The Tasting Teams
‘At the lower end there was a lot of residual sweetness, which might be typical but it was a bit much for me.’ James Fryer, team leader
‘A very good overall flight, with super-rich dried fruit character across the board and incredible balance shown by some wines. Compared to established regions such as France and Spain, there was really good value.’ Daniel Eriksen, Anglian Country Inns
‘The Lisbon wines, in particular, had too much new oak and not enough fruit.’ Harry Crowther, Grape Times
‘It was quite a slog but ultimately rewarding. When we came back to discuss the final verdict we were very impressed with the flight.’ Oliver Zelenczuk, London Shell Co
‘This was the first flight in which we saw what were clearly bad wines: huge ripeness, sweetness, extraction and a lot of harsh, green, poor-quality oak. The ones we did like let some freshness and personality come through.’ Charlie Young, team leader
‘They would make good food wines – high acidity and high tannins. There’s a rusticity to them that is good. They’ve got their own charm.’ Andres Ituarte, team leader
‘My favourite flight of the day. Very different styles, from wines with blackcurrant notes, to ones that were super-earthy, and others that were sweet.’ Cinthia Lozano, The Winery Honduras
‘Sweetness was a motif throughout the flight: high acidity, high tannin, but nothing in between to keep all together.’ Mattia Mazzi, The River Cafe
‘The sub-£10 price range really performed incredibly well.’ Martin Lam, team leader
‘This is a warm region so it shouldn’t have such high acidity. Nothing amazing here.’ Tanguy Martin, Blandford Comptoir