Aroma: Blackberry, cassis, black cherry and blueberry in a somewhat stiff format.
Palate: The tannins creep up on you with this wine. The fruit is there but wound up in a tight boundary giving the impression of either a young or stylistically austere wine. Almost a juicy streak of red cherries bubbling up threatening to break loose. There is a lightheartedness to the wine if you “taste deep”. Hence a chameleon characteristic.
Personality: I am or perhaps I think I am a ramrod British officer in East Berlin. But get me to the British Officer’s Club and after a few gin and tonics I have a slightly different personality.
Food Match: A “Holy Ghost” Azorean beef dish with bread soaked in broth. Or if in the Greek mood a Pourgouri Pilaf.
Cellarability: Will improve by softening into 2024. Hold until 2025.
Price: $19.95 (Ontario).
In a nutshell: Well put together this is a firm wine that will with a bit of age soften up and drink beautifully but until then a foodie wine.
The grapes for this wine were planted in cracks in a lava bed at the foot of a volcanic mountain. The vineyards are planted close to the ocean so you can hear the crabs sing. The vines are protected by lava rock walls known as currais.
Aroma: A tad funky but not unappealingly so. Notes of cantaloupe, pineapple and pineapple jam on wholewheat toast.
Palate: The slight bit of funk on the nose dissipates and replaced by pineapple upside down cake. Not much depth.
Food Match: North American Chinese such as “pineapple chicken”.
Personality: I am short tempered with not a huge amount of intellectual ability.
Cellarbility: Will not improve but will hold until the end of 2024.
Price: In Portugal 33 Euros.
RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 88/100.
(Arinto dos Açores Antonio Macanita 2018, D.O. Pico, Azores Wine Company
The Ilha do Pico Co-op Vitivinicola was established in 1949 and has 250 associates with 51 local grape producers participating. It is the largest winery in the Portuguese Azores. 50% of its wines are consumed in the Azores and the rest exported to the United States, Canada and Europe.
As any co-op purchasing grapes there will always be quality control issues. For example if a co-op purchases grapes by weight it would be tempting for grape growers to overcrop raising the weight and compromising the intensity of the juice. All parties eventually suffer including the consumer. So the Co-op prefers to consult and educate its growers rather than act as an enforcer. Grapes are tested for quality to meet CVR Açores requirements.
A group of ten of us visited the co-op for a brief tour and a tasting. Tastings were lacking in technical sheets, which make a wine writer’s job so much more difficult.
The white wines wines sampled were approachable and highly drinkable and mostly in the off dry category.
The reds were forgettable lacking character and depth. Reds are an afterthought on Pico Island and for that matter in the Azores.
The surprise was a liqueur called Ilha do Pico 10 Year that sells for 50 Euros and is one of the Co-op’s best sellers in 2022. Somewhat of a combination of a white Port and sherry is has spent 8 years in French oak with notes of orange, orange marmalade, butterscotch all contained in a lush and creamy mouthfeel.
Should you visit the Co-op they have a Wine Tourism Tasting Programme ranging from three wines at 15 Euros per person to 9 wines for 50 Euros per person. Cheese plates with three local cheeses are 10 Euros.
The Pico Museum consists of three separate museums on the island of Pico in the Azores of Portugal. There is the Whaler’s Museum, the Wine Museum and the Whaling Industry Museum. Oh yes whaling and wine say much about the history of Pico Island.
Majestic Dragon Trees outside the Pico Wine Museum: Photo Robert K. Stephen
Wine has played an important part in the Pico Island culture that began with the inhabitation of the island. The Wine Museum is located at the Carmo Convent. It is small and basic but if you are interested in Pico wine a visit to the Wine Museum is mandatory. You’ll see the vineyards and majestic dragon trees.
Lucas Amaral may be the youngest winemaker in Portugal at least according to his proud mother Sandra. He started at 19 and now at 21 he is building up his profile. On my recent trip to Portugal a group of us had the opportunity to meet Lucas, have lunch and enjoy his wine. Lucas is also a very young father of a 6-month-old. He is a man who wastes no time in getting down to business!
Lucas Amaral opening up a bottle of his wine: Photo Robert K. Stephen
The cost of Pico Island wines may seem more than wines from mainland Portugal. Sandra explains to us that management of the vineyard is labour intensive due to its rocky ground. No mechanization in the fields is possible. Winemaking equipment and related supplies must be shipped in from the Portuguese mainland.
The Amaral family was once the biggest producer of grapes on Pico Island but COVID had the effect of shutting down one of its biggest buyers so Lucas started using the family grapes to make wine. His style captures the essence of Pico Island. Easy drinking and straight forward with just the right amount of acidity suitable for the multitude of PICO Island fish dishes.
And the food served started with plenty of flat cornbread, corn bread and sweet bread typical on a Pico Island plate.
Cornbread and sweet bread: Photo Robert K. Stephen
Pico Island cheese to start then sausages including a blood sausage. Limpets freshy scraped off the rocks in the morning followed. Crabs in a spicy garlic sauce next.
Crabs in a spicy sauce; Photo Robert K. Stephen
Next was “Holy Ghost Soup” with chunks of beef and bread soaked in broth. Holy Ghost Soup is often served at town lunches especially for those with health issues who it is thought are blessed by the soup.
Again for dessert Pico Island sweet rice.
Adega Amaral welcomes those wishing to eat incredible Pico Island food and easy drinking white wines! Here is a link to their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/adegalucasamaral/ .
Matters were not proceeding particularly well for many in my group of 10 that were now sitting in Adega Czar at 9940-363 São Roque do Pico in the Azores Islands of Portugal. An aborted landing and mega delays to get to Pico Island. Late nights, early mornings and some 7 flights in 4 days. And you think the life of a wine writer is a walk on easy street. So around 20:00 we enter the home of Adega Czar. Fortunato Garcia welcomes us and is a hearty and hale man with the heart of a lion and if there was a Mr. Personality Award on PICO Island Fortunato would certainly be the winner.
Before the Feast: Photo Robert K. Stephen
It is raining and the wind is howling in true PICO Island fashion as we enter the Adega. An incredibly rich seafood smell caresses the nose. Someone is obviously very skilled at making “fish soup” which sounds awfully pedantic doesn’t it? Does “caldo de peixe á moda do Pico” sound better? It damn well does and does justice to this soup packed with fish eggs, sargo, grouper (garopa) and conger eel (congro). The eel is moist and slightly fatty and tender and massively addictive so much so for dessert my colleagues were eating rice pudding but my dessert was more eel!
Fish Soup Pico Style: Photo Robert K. Stephen
I should mention the Azoreans love their cheese and we have two from the island of St. Georges. Awesome. We have sweet bread, cornbread and flat cornbread always available. We are regaled with countless stories from Fortunato and while all the others are drinking white wine with the soup Fortunato and I are drinking some Isabella wine. A simple local wine he buys for his own consumption but it suits the “fish soup” so beautifully! You add some of the Isabella to your clay cup and spoon in the fish soup. But just the right amount of wine. I am now a PICO islander while my colleagues are tourists!
We have some Arinto dos Açroes, some Verdelho but my grey matter is fixated on the eel and Isabella! And then the Czar wines Fotunato’s forte so as to speak. Czar wine is harvested raisins. Not grapes that have dried after being picked. The wine was so coveted in olden times (and now in California) that it was a preferred wine of the Czar’s of Russia. It comes in at about 20% and is smooth… deceptively smooth and to be consumed with care. The Douro has Port. PICO Island has Czar! But most of the world knows nothing of it. It is like a sherry on steroids with vanilla and orange and his Czar wines sell in the United States for $500 to $1,000 a bottle.
And to top it off Fortunato takes out his guitar and as a PICO minstrel serenades us with traditional PICO songs.
Food Music And Wine! Photo Robert K. Stephen
It has been rough going at Wine and Travel Week but this night has healed all the frustration and pain. It was a memorable night not only of this trip but of my life. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the Czar wine but I was happy as a limpet with my Conger Eel and that less than sophisticated Isabella red wine! No regrets. You could never buy such an evening even if you are a group of ten and pay 2,000 Euros for a feast like this!
Of course you can always go to PICO Island and try as you may to replicate my evening. Please send me any leftover eel!!!!
Prosecco with a crown cap and a swivel stopper. Retro cool! Organic too! Any good?
Aroma: Simplistic right on green apple, Flemish pear, honey and pineapple.
Palate: Much softer and fruitier than an equivalent priced Crémant. Less acids too!
Personality: I am not in your face scouring your palate like a Brillo Pad. You could almost mistake me for a Moscato impersonator if I wasn’t so dry!
Food Match: Something mild such as filet of sole or turbot meuniere. An old restaurant trick being tell the patrons they are eating sole but it is turbot!
Cellarbility: Drink by the end of 2023. Good for the hot and humid days ahead with 11% alcohol.
Our group of 10 meandered into our hotel Senhora da Rosa Tradition & Nature Hotel in Ponta Delgado. It has been a long day, the day of the aborted landing at Ponta Delgado Airport. It is past midnight and we have an early morning pick up for our flight to PICO Island. We have a tasty light supper waiting for us with my goodness no wine! Am I in Portugal? So we crack open a few bottles Quinta Morgado from the Algarve had sent me prior to leaving for the airport in Porto. It is good stuff. The sparkler wins great acclaim as akin to a Piper Heidsieck Brut Reserve. Those Algarvian winemakers know their stuff if this wine is any indication of the wines of the Algarve.
Wait there is no room that has been booked for me. An error of the hotel or of the organizers of Wine and Travel Week? A room is found for me thank goodness. I trudge into the room to a plate of fresh pineapple and a welcome note from the hotel’s manager starting with “Dear Wolfgang Volk. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to Senhora da Rosa Tradition and Nature Hotel.”
Part of being invited to attend Wine and Travel Week in Porto this February included a three day side trip to the Azores, Portuguese Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.
It is a bit over two hours as the crow flies but it was not a crow I was flying on but an Air Azores A321 Airbus from Porto to Nordela Airport in Ponta Delgado. Descending for a pitch black landing in the fog and rain the plane takes a sudden dip and jerks upward its engines making “unusual noises”. The plane then starts wobbling to and fro accelerating upwards with red and white lights from the plane being seen in the fog. The lady in the window seat starts to moan and cling to her husband, I rather expect a huge crash and I await the impact soon to be no more! But we circle the island not knowing what in God’s name is happening. An aborted landing perhaps? SATA gives no explanation. Flying for 50 years this is my first aborted landing and I hope it will be the last.
The next day the terror was replaced by sheer boredom. A SATA Air Azores Dash 8 was to take us from Ponta Delgado to Pico Island. It was late in arriving due to the repair of the ventilation system. So eventually it arrives and off we take only to return to Ponta Delgado with ventilation system problems. After several hours delay off we go to Pico Island missing most of our day’s activities. SATA Air Azores was so kind to give us a food voucher for some lunch. A whopping 4 Euros when the cheapest sandwich at the airport is 4.65 Euros. We were obligated to pick up our bags then check in again and go through security. Portuguese Groundhog Day.
On my trips to Porto you might say I mainline on the tasty grilled sardines served up at Alexandre Osorio’s Postigo do Carvão right by the river in the historic Ribeira District of Porto. I have been sardining there for years. I mean the starters are great, like the octopus salad and the cod fritters. And the top rate Zalto Denkart glassware for an expertly curated selection of Portuguese wines such as the excellent Chapeleiro Arinto and Loureiro from the Vinho Verde which recently filled my glass.
Postigo appetizers: Robert K. Stephen Photo
So while attending Wine and Travel Week in Porto in late February I dropped by to see Alexandre at Postigo expecting a bash of those stinky, silvery but utterly delicious sardines! We chatted for a bit catching up and with a smile in his eyes said he was preparing a special dish for me. Yummy. Oh me o my SARDINES!!!!
BUT WAIT. What was that mound of salt being wheeled over to my table after my octopus salad was scoffed down? A whole wild caught Robalo (sea bass). What cruelty! What deprivation! No sardines in Portugal. Who cares if they are out of season. In the midst of a shaking fit that cruel Alexandre nonchalantly said can you believe this, “There is more to life than sardines!” Has my good friend now become a sardine withdrawal therapist! Sardine season runs from May to the end of September. I wanted the real thing and in some methadone fashion he offers me sea bass! I am a sardinestore cowboy!
Really man this isn’t a platter of sardines!: Photo Robert K. Stephen
After some soothing therapist talk Alexandre calmed my anxiety down and the salt was removed and the sea bass filleted served with kale and white beans, roast potatoes, cabbage and carrots puree along with purple kale. YES IT WAS EXCELLENT!
After a wickedly delicious Lime Almond Pie prepared by his wife Ana finished off by a Taylor’s 30-year-old port I proudly was presented with a sardine rehabilitation certificate.
The final result: Photo Robert K. Stephen
Robalo ain’t sardines but it is a damn good substitute at least until May when the frisky stinkers are back in season!
Postigo do Carvão, Rua da Fonte Taurina 24 a 34, Porto, Portugal Tel 351 22 200 45 39, www.postigodocarvao.webs.com
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 