Gone are the days of vintners automatically turning to French or American oak to age their wines. With terroir becoming ever more hyper-focused, Portuguese producers are increasingly housing their wines in barrels made from local wood. Sarah Neish reports.

At one time Portuguese oak was mainly used for ageing Port and other fortified wines, but the wood is increasingly finding its way into the cellars of table winemakers in Portugal, and with good reason.

“Recently, there has been growing interest in using Portuguese oak barrels,” Francisco Toscano Rico, president of Wines of Lisboa, tells db. Describing the material as “denser and less porous than French oak”, he explains that Portuguese oak “allows less oxygen into the barrel, making it suitable for longer maturation without the wood dominating, while adding a unique character to the wine.”

Since Quinta do Gradil, a former royal hunting lodge about an hour away from Lisbon, launched two wines, a Tannat and an Alicante Bouschet, in Portuguese oak about five years ago, its success has led to other producers experimenting with the wood.

More tannins

António Ventura, one of the most renowned winemakers in Portugal, explains that Portuguese oak is “more rustic and resinous, which works very well with grape varieties that have more tannins, such as Alicante Bouschet, Tannat, Caladoc and Sousão, which have all given excellent results.”

Ventura is the winemaker at Quinta de Atela on the southern banks of the Tejo river and has a chocolate box of grape varieties at his disposal in its 600ha vineyard, including Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Gewürztraminer, Arinto, Moscatel Graúdo, Alvarinho, or Viosinho; and for reds, Castelão, Pinot Noir, Trincadeira Preta, Alicante Bouschet, Merlot, Caladoc, Aragonez, Syrah, Touriga Nacional, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot. As such, he has had the opportunity to trial Portuguese oak using a number of different grapes. He also played a pivotal role in the Porta 6 wine label, a favourite in the UK market, which produces around six million litres of reds and one million litres of whites per year, and works as a consultant for producers all over Portugal through his company Provintage.

“In my experience as a winemaker, what I have learned from using Portuguese oak is that it makes wines more authentic and ‘unmasked’,” he says. “Even with long maturation, the wood never dominates the wine, which in my view is a great advantage.”

Top of the range wines

While he describes using Portuguese oak with the floral Touriga Nacional grape as “not interesting”, Ventura has found success with ageing reds in the Alentejo, Douro and Lisbon regions — “especially with grape varieties that have good tannic structure, such as Alicante Bouschet, Sousão and even Tinta Miúda.”

Source:The Drinks Business