February Wine Club: Field Blends and Friends
A street in Lisbon. Cobblestones aplenty.
This month, we’re heading to Portugal and focusing on field blends. If you aren’t familiar with these, they are wines where two or more grapes are grown together, fermented together, and bottled together in a wine that ends up being more than the sum of its parts. (Better together, eh? Sounds to us like a Valentine’s Day reference.) With more than 250 native grape varieties, Portugal is the perfect place to roam and discover this style of wine.
In terms of matching up with the GoodWine mission, there are several climate-related goodies here. First, field blends let grape growers and winemakers handle more of what the weather brings, since grape varieties ripen at different rates and handle weather differently. Multiple varieties in one plot also increase biodiversity in the vineyard, which is good all around and a cornerstone of regenerative agriculture. Finally, the carbon footprint is lower than replanting; working with often old, existing vines found in a place rather than ripping them up and planting that variety you’ve always wanted to work with is cheaper and involves less waste and fewer resources.
Think of field blends like a happy experiment—you never know with complete certainty how the finished wine will turn out, but it’s gonna be fun (or at least a good learning opportunity!). There’s something to be said for the gnarly (gnarled?) beauty of these vines, too.
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about this month’s selections! And if you want more Portuguese wine recs or field blend wine selections from all the other great places where they’re found, we will be glad to chat. Vanessa has been loads of times, and Miki is heading back in May.
The Wines
We’re going to go in the order of geography this month rather than white to red, as we normally do! First stop: Lisbon and its suburbs. (Can you find wine growing in a city? For sure!)
This first wine is the Uncondemned Red wine from abandoned vineyards north of Lisbon. These vines would have been ripped out, as the owners weren’t in the business of making wine, but nearby winemakers Luis Sousa and Andre Pereira saved them from being “condemned” and decided to give them a new purpose.
This wine has been made in an ancient style called “palhete,” which involves fermenting white and red grapes in open concrete tanks. The grapes include Fernao Pires, Arinto, Trincadeira, Baga, Alicante Bouschet, Touriga Nacional, Castelao, and other unidentified (!) indigenous red and white varieties. Scroll back up to get a picture of these gnarly and charismatic vines!
— Uncondemned Vinho Tinto 2021
Our next wine is from further north in the Douro River valley. Home to the vineyards that have produced famous Port wines, the Douro is a must-see landscape, a World Heritage site, and its namesake river cuts a mean (read: steep) valley.
From the Douro, we bring you the Boina Tinto 2019, which is a blend of Touriga Franca, Tinta Amarela, Tinta Carvalha, Tinta Francisca, and Souzão. It’s such a great example of a yummy blend of grapes that have often appeared in port wine but are now ready to accompany the main meal rather than just show up for dessert.
— Portugal Boutique Winery “Boina Tinto” 2019
Next stop is Alentejo, which is in the inland part of Portugal far from Atlantic Ocean influences and has been on our radar since the New York Times profiled it a while ago. More recently, the Times pointed out that Alentejo’s winemakers are suffering for lack of rain—so much so that the region created its own sustainability program to deal with it. Under these guidelines, producers have reduced water usage by 20 percent.
Cabeças do Reguengo, the producer of our Alentejano wine, found a century-old vineyard at the base of the Serra de São Mamede mountain near Spain and set to work rehabilitating the vines (grafting new onto old) rather than replanting. They’ve got an agritourism estate that looks like a treat to visit, too.
Check out this white and remember that spring is just around the corner. Cheers!