Sogrape of Portugal

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Portugal for a short tour courtesy of the Sogrape group and their UK importer and distributor, Liberty Wines. It might come as something of a surprise to learn that one of the largest wine producing companies in Portugal, with the iconic brand Mateus Rosé as part of its extensive portfolio, is also entirely family owned.

The Sogrape company was formed in 1942 by Fernando Van Zeller Guedes, and is run today by his three grandsons, Salvador, Manuel and Fernando. It truly a powerhouse of the Portguese industry, not only through the huge sales of Mateus, but brands including Sandeman Port, Quinta do Azevedo Vinho Verde and one of the country’s most revered red wines, the Douro’s Barca Velha.

Sogrape’s reach is global however, not just in the distribution of its Portuguese wines, but its wholly-owned wine estates that include Bodegas LAN in Rioja, Finca Flichman in Argentina, Viña Los Boldos in Chile and Framingham in New Zealand.

This visit and accompanying tastings spanned four important Portuguese wine regions, from Minho in the far north, to the Alentejo in the south, by way of the Douro and Dão.

Quinta de Azevedo, Minho

Day one saw me drive around 1.5 hours north of Porto to the beautiful and historic Minho region, home of the widely-available and always excellent Quinta de Azevedo Vinho Verde. There is considerable experimentation here too, explained winemaker Antonio Braga (right) and one of Sogrape’s current generation of owners, Manuel Guedes. “It’s a challenging time for Vinho Verde in some ways,” says Manuel. “Do we keep the ‘fun’ wines or concentrate more on trying to move Vinho Verde upward?” To that end there is a new, more ‘serious’ Loureiro and Alvarinho blend, and maybe a red Vinho Verde in the future, possibly not made from Vinhao as is traditional, but from Mencia.

One of the wine world’s most widely used fermentation yeasts, QA23, originated in the Minho, but Antonio also uses wild yeasts in some ferments. “But more important than yeasts, or barrels, is picking date and blending,” he says. He is a huge fan of old field blends, where different varieties are co-planted “Field blends can be beautiful because it is like a marinade – the flavours integrate and grow together before you ‘cook’ them.”

Also tasted was one wine from Quinta da Torre, owned by the Guedes family since 1990.

Quinta dos Carvalhais, Dão

I met up with Beatriz Cabral de Almeida, winemaker at the Dão estate of Quinta dos Carvalhais, a 105 hectare property purchased by the Guedes family in 1988. Granite soils are planted with indigenous Dão varieties like Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Alfrocheiro and Jaen for red wines and Encruzado, Bical and Cercial for whites. One of the secrets to the freshness of Dão’s wines is altitude, these vineyards at 465- to 500-metres above sea level.

The climate here is more continental than in Minho. Though the altitude means it is still on the cooler side for Portugal, Beatriz recalls how devastating wild fires in 2017 that killed many people breached the vineyards, but so many local people and the fire service rallied to stop it and save the vineyards. Though a new winery with lots of small-volume tanks allows plots to be vinified separately, the granite lagres in the old winery have been restored and small quantities of grapes are being processed there on a trial basis.

Herdade do Peso, Alentejo

Down in the quite different heat of the Alentejo, Herdade do Peso is a massive property that occupies a total area of 457 hectares, with 160 hectares planted to vine. Around 152 of those are red varieties including Aragonês (another Tempranillo synonym), Trincadeira, Alfrocheiro, Periquita and Touriga Nacional. White varieties are Antão Vaz and Arinto. I knew I had met winemaker Luis Cabral de Almeida somewhere, but it clicked that was at Finca Flichman in Argentina many years ago, before his return to his Portugal.

Sogrape established this estate in the Vidigueira region in 1996, having previously bought fruit from it to make Alentejo wines under other brands. Major improvements were made in the vineyards, and 1998 a new purpose-built winery was added.  It has a diverse output, from less expensive everyday bottlings to Reserve wines made only in exceptional years, and as well as French, American and Caucasian oak in the cellars, there are clay amphorae, as traditionally used in the Alentejo.

Casa Ferreirinha, Douro

Based in the winery at Quinta de Leda in the Douro Valley, I met head winemaker Luis Sottomayor, responsible for all winemaking in the Sogrape group, with a particular hand in making Ferreirinha’s most famous wine, Barca Velha. This is the biggest property in the Douro Superior, with 160 hectares of vineyard, dominated by plantings of Touriga Franca.

A wide range of wines is produced here, but of course focus falls on the almost legendary Barca Velha. There have been only 18 releases of the wine since 1952. Selected barrels are bottled in Burgundy-shaped bottles if thought to be good enough, but assessment continues throughout the ageing process before a decision is made whether the wine will become Barca Velha, or will be labelled as ‘Reserva Especial’ – hence both wines are uniquely in the Burgundian bottles from this producer. These really are wines from exceptional years, and often neither is released: 2008 was a Barca Velha year for example, 2009 a Reserva, 2010 nothing, 2011 as yet undecided, and neither wine will be produced from the 2012, 2014 or 2015 vintages.

Sandeman, Douro

‘The Don’ needs little introduction, the iconic cloaked figure having adorned bottles of Sandeman Port since 1935. I visited the winery at Quinta do Seixo, surrounded by some of Sandeman’s most important Douro vineyards, and then on to their cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia. Both are well set-up for tourism, with shops, tours and tastings.

In the Douro, Sandeman’s vineyards span 700 hectares between the Douro and Torto rivers, with a multitude of different expositions and altitudes, giving “So many possibilities compared to the Alentejo for example which is a flat plateau with the same altitudes and expositions,” says Luis Sottomayor. There’s also a mix of very old, and much younger vineyards, with Sandeman planting not only six different clones of Touriga Nacional, but comparative rarities like Touriga Fêmea. The robotic lagares are a major draw for visitors as they relentlessly ‘tread’ the grapes, though for the premium ports foot-treading is still the order of the day.

Back down in Gaia, it was a delight to meet up with quintessential Englishman abroad, the charming George Sandeman, 7th generation Chairman of the company and roving ambassador, pictured in the cellars with the Don observing proceedings. He is also a huge fan of age-dated tawnies, the focus of our tasting with him. “Tawnies aged in Vila Nova de Gaia are fresher, perhaps less intense and caramelised than those aged in the Douro, but fresh and far more drinkable.” he says.

Choosing young wines to become aged tawnies requires skill and experience, with a need to identify “strong young wines that can improve over 40 years,” he says. Stocks of newly fermented wine come to Gaia and are aged for one year before first racking, then back into barrel for another 12 months and the cycle continues. As they age, barrels can be refreshed with younger wines – a fractional blending system that George says keeps the house style of freshness. Drawn from cask, we tasted a sample of a 60-year-old wine that had so much density, red fruit and raisins, lovely spice and walnut and dried apricot notes, caramel too, but the freshness was dazzling. “Perhaps too intense on its own for Sandeman,” says George, “but an excellent blending component that gives the 30- and 40-year-olds some of their character.”