Tejo">Alentejo is a well-known, highly respected wine region in eastern Portugal. This hot, Dry area covers approximately a third of the country and is best known for its red wine, the best of which are sold under the and Alentejo DOC (Denominacao de Origem Controlada) title.
Wine from Alentejo is typically made from Aragonez (Tempranillo), Castelao, Trincadeira or a Rich, ripe, jammy blend of the three. Antao Vaz is the white variety of choice here, producing a good level of Acidity and tropical fruit flavors.
Although famously diverse in its portfolio of wine grapes (navigating the many names and their synonyms is a challenge), Alentejo has not been sluggish to adopt such globally popular varieties as Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. One of the most remarkable things about modern Alentejo winemaking is its ability to create a uniquely Alentejano wine style from quintessentially French grape varieties.
The region is named for its position South of the Tejo river, which bisects Portugal, entering the ocean near Lisbon. Alentejo extends across about a third of Portugal, with only the Algarve region separating it from the southern coast of the country.
Even the briefest of glances at a population density map of Portugal shows that this area of the country is only very sparsely populated, in stark contrast to the Northern coastal areas around Oporto. Land here is used (somewhat intensively) for the production of various cereal crops, and the cork for which Portugal is so famous. Whereas the cork plantations of the north are quite small, here in Alentejo there is sufficient free space for the thick-barked Quercus suber trees to sprawl out all over the countryside.
The Size of Alentejo means that there is a wealth of Terroir, and it is fairly difficult to generalize about the region as a whole.
The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...
The fine wine market goes into autumn 2022 after a particularly strong period of gains, although there has been greater uncertainty about momentum in recent weeks. At Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, the Liv-ex 100 index dipped 0.3% in July 2022 but had risen every month for two years prior to that. UK-based merchant Bordeaux Index recently reported prices on the market up by 10% in the first half of 2022, with Burgundy up 26% on average. Strong activity on the LiveTrade online tradin ...
Australian wine exports dropped by 19% to A$2.08bn in the year to 30 June, said trade body Wine Australia this week. While exports to some countries rose, notably the US, the group’s report for the 2021-22 financial year offered fresh insight into a slide in shipments to China. Mainland China imposed varying import tariffs ranging from 116% to more than 200% on Australian bottled wines from late 2020 onwards. Exports to China, including Hong Kong and Macau, dropped by 74% in the 12 months to 30 ...
