Portugal: Red, Alentejo
2019 GOLD: 2 SILVER: 4 BRONZE: 0 COMMENDED: 6
2018 GOLD: 1 SILVER: 4 BRONZE: 1 COMMENDED: 3
One year our tasters are talking about big fruit and big oak, the next they’re bemoaning bony tannins and squeaky green notes. From which we can conclude that the Alentejo is decidedly vintage sensitive.
2018 (which most of these wines were) is clearly an easier vintage to manage than the 2017s that dominated last year’s Sommelier Wine Awards (and attracted a fair bit of criticism from our teams). Taster after taster remarked on the exuberance of fruit – though even here they weren’t problem-free.
The best wines managed to pick early enough to retain freshness, and balance that natural fruit with the right amount of oak. The less popular wines saw jammy fruit and high alcohol, often backed up, for good measure, with too much oak influence. The result? Big, powerful blockbusters that could, frankly, have come from anywhere.
FROM THE TASTING TEAMS
‘There was a lot of delicious ripe fruit here, but it felt like these all had the same end goal: to produce smoky, massive, oak-laden, rich reds, which was disappointing. It would have been better to see more regional identity.’ Jade Koch, team leader
‘There were fantastic wines here offering good freshness, with some real stars. Portugal in general offers good value for money, and this is a very traditional region that has produced outstanding wines for a long time, at a price point that’s important for the market. They can offer good wines without breaking the budget.’ Sylwester Piasecki, Zuma
‘The difference, compared to the Douro, is in the tannins, with these more juicy and round, while the Douro can have more firm tannins. In this flight I didn’t see too much oak.’ Valentin Radosav, Gymkhana Restaurant
‘The Alentejo is the region in Portugal where you find the most well-balanced wines, with fruit, complexity and alcohol. In the Douro most of the winemakers want to make prestige wines for putting in a cellar for 20 years, but here it’s the opposite. You get wines that you could drink in 20 years, but that taste good now, too.’ Carlos Ferreira, team leader
‘My image of Alentejo is of robust, chocolatey, spicy wines. The middle price bracket, between £9 and £12, were some of the most interesting, with a lot of complexity, and value for money.’ Olivier Gasselin, Hakkasan