Portuguese Cheeses and Wines April-May 2025

 Portuguese Cheeses and Wines

Portuguese cheeses & wines

Note- Now updated with the photos!

22 April

Already in two days we’ve tried more than half a dozen cheeses and close to that in wines; now to try to remember, and promise to keep up in the future!

Fresh goat from pingo doce grocery store: very mild, only slightly goaty aftertaste. Packed so that it stays bathed in milk, but the liquid doesn’t spill out. Lost the label before I remembered to capture it.

Fresh sheep from grocery store: also quite mild, in milk to stay moist. Almost jellied consistency. Vale da Estrela, Mangualde

Semi soft aged cow at Rei da Pesca: Saloio from Pinheiro (near Braga)

At Avillez we had three: 

Serra de Estrela soft cow very famous but not that notable to us. Very mild flavor, a bit nutty, pleasant .

Tras-os-montes Terrincho- very sharp aged sheep, semi-hard with red rind, from paprika and brandy. Strong flavor.

Sao Jorge Aged cow from Azores- hard with a bite. I thought it was sheep.

Wine

-a fizzy 2024 VVerde at fish place, no name, very light and pleasant 

-Alentejo white at lunch- forgot the name, reminded me of Temecula whites- light with alkaline turn

-“JA” Rose 2023 from Lisbon area

-Avillez/Niepoort 2022 red from Douro

Very pleasant , from Quinta de Napoli.

23 April 

Pastries 

I must break in here for a word about pastries. One hears a great deal about Portuguese sweets especially the pasteles de nata. Those are terrific, but that’s not the end of it: I tasted a bright orange blob of egg yolk jam that brought me up short. A concoction of yolk and sugar and almond paste that clung to a spoon, with a walnut on top for good measure. And there must be dozens more- traditionally made by nuns, the convents are in grave competition to see who can invent the best pastry. But what do they do with all the egg whites?

Back on the wine channel…

Cheryl likes Portuguese wines! At the Regaleira terrace cafe we actually had two (2!) glasses of the local white, a Sintra  wine: Serras de Azeitao, a verdelho.

The nice Douro red from Wednesday night-

Papa Figos, 2022- an inexpensive blend produced for Sogrape by Casa Ferreirinha

24 April 

Tonight‘s wine adventure was to see how low we could go. We bought a white wine from the Lisbon area (vinho regional, Fernao Pires grape, Tejo appellation) for less than two euros in the grocery store just to see what it was like: totally drinkable! I’m not sure you can even buy an empty bottle in the US for that. Box wine is even cheaper but I didn’t want to carry so much. I like Portugal. 

26 April 

Oysters! Locally farmed in the estuary are large and luscious, and great with the Setubal wines: 

The Lobo Mau 2023 blend of Moscatel, Gallegos and Roxo from Palmela was the freshest white we’ve had. 

27 April 

Lunch wines from Alentejo region:

Terras d’Uva Tinto 2023 from Mingorra winery in Beja: Trincadeiro, Castelao & Alicante Bouchet - ok but does not have enough fruit… hot dry region

White 2024 also from Terras d’Uva had good acidity, like a desert farmed wine (Cheryl didn’t like) 

White “Caiado” 2023 from Adega Major winery: Antonao Vaz, Arinto & Roupeiro

Serpa sheep cheese , semi soft tangy creamy: add a smear of apricot jam!

Rose Flor de Sal, 2023 Ervideira winery from Aragonez & Touriga Nacional (Cheryl liked, especially with Serpa sheep cheese)

White “ETC”2023 a Vinho Regional Alentejo made from Antonio Vaz, Arinto & Roupeiro

28 April 

Wines to drink during the power outage (the server told me she was freaking out- I said maybe you should drink some wine too- I’ve been freaking out continuously since November and it helps)

Ervideira wines from Monsaraz (Alentejo):

Invisivel 2024- a white wine made from first pressing of the red aragonez grape. Very light and fresh- fish, Brie, salads 

Conde d’Ervideira 2023- lightly oaked aged white, Antao Vaz grape. Medium bodied, round and pleasant , good with strong cheese

Rosé Flor de Sal- had this also yesterday and I still like it- more like a CA than a French style 

The Pinot Noir 2022 is neither CA nor Burgundian. 12%. I don’t know why they bother. 

The big reserve red: 2023 tinto blend was rich, peppery and full bodied, with loads of tannin; good for pork and cured meats. The blend includes Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Conde d’Ervideira 2021 is a brute of a red, very dry, almost harsh and not much fruit. Tough, give it ten years, like a Petite Sirah. Aragonez, Trincadeira and Alicante Bouchet.

Fortified Tinta Caiada- 2015, kind of like a port but not… a bit too sweet and not enough character.

Power still out, I’m sitting on the terrace with lovely glass of Alentejo red from Paulo Laureano 2017 Vinhas Velhas blend of Trincadeiro,Aragonez & Alicante Bouchet : full bodied and dark fruity, with light drying tannins. Best and oldest wine I’ve had here; maybe they all need a few years.

It’s difficult to spend more than 10E on a wine at the grocery store- I haven’t made it to a wine shop yet, where I’m sure there are more expensive choices; it has been shocking how good the wines are at the lower price points.  

The closest I’ve come to 10e was this Setúbal red for 9.80:

Ermalinda, Vinha da Valentina, 2022, made from Aragonez, Castelao and Alicante Bouchet. Dark fruits, well balanced.

01 May

Moving into the Douro

I skipped the Dao region for now. 

Had this half bottle with pork cheeks tonight:

Lello 2021- It’s a full spectrum blend of Douro red grapes, with forward red fruit and gentle tannins.Less than 7E, even in restaurant.

2 May

We finally had some of the vaunted Serra da Estrella sheep cheese….maybe it was just the type we had or an off brand but it was boring, kind of bland like a havarti or something. I don’t get the hype. (Note from later: nah, they’re all boring)

Another Douro red 2021 with lunch of the usual blend, from Andreza.

Our first port tasting at Vasques d’Caravalho was a good education: it turns out we both like the vintage dated versions of the tawnys as well as for the actual Vintage ports, which are ruby style. Had a white port 2014 that was undistinguished, and then the great 2020 Vintage (which I decided to buy a bottle, at yikes 125E!), a Vintage 2013, and a 30 year tawny. All good but the 2020 was great, very distinctive sharp tannins right next to the sweet fruit. Demands cheese!

3 May

It seems there is a standard for wine labels in Portugal: at least in the range of bottles I’ve seen thus far, the back label has the same type of information organized in the same way, always with an English translation. It’s agreeable to me but I wonder if it’s true for more expensive or small producers’ wines as well. Maybe I’ll have to dive deeper!

At a wine bar “Petiscos no Mercado” near the Bulhao market, while my laundry runs: I’m having a glass of Castelares Touriga Nacional Reserva Douro 2021… this is way better than the house reds I can get by the glass in most restaurants.

The Sao Miguel 9 months aged sheep cheese is a strong , hard cheese from the Azores. Good with toast, almost like a ham. Azores cheeses and butter are really good and everywhere: I guess it’s where they decided to source them.  

Douro on the Douro: the Cedro do Noval 2021 tasted like raspberries and licorice, perfect with our oxtail. It’s one of the many dry wines from Quinta da Noval.

Dry and port tasting at Quinta da Jalloto- their 2017 red was good, as was the 23 Rose; skip the 23 unoaked white, and the Vintage 2016 port- too simple. The location can’t be beat, on a walk high above Pinhao.

We drove over the hills that separate the Douro from the next wine region to the south, the Dao; it’s like driving over the Mayacamas range from Calistoga to Sonoma, about 3300 feet at the peak, with a different microclimate and a completely different rock/soil composition down the other side- Douro schist, Dao granite.

In Viseu (center of the Dao) we had a Dao red, Dona Sancha, Vinha da Avarenta 2021. Very good, but I have no reference or experience with these wines yet so no further comment, except that it pairs well with the local special pork and rice dish.

Back in Regua, on the Douro side of the divide- “Terra a Terra” 2022 Douro reserve red (Tinta Roriz,Touriga Franca,Touriga Nacional) with dinner in Peso da Régua tonight (chez Paula at Tasca da Quinta) elevated even the orange peel flavored butter, and everything else. Terrific meal with mushroom tapas, octopus salad and Feijoada (white bean stew).

6 May

You have to be kidding me! It’s unbearably scenic in the Douro … the drive from Porto to Pinhao is about 2 hours and the last hour is twisty and breathtaking. 

It’s absurd to even contemplate the human effort it has taken to build all these terraces and stone walls. 

Cheryl asked:

How is it possible that a single row of grape vines is worth building hndreds of thousands of miles of stone walls? 

Who built these endless terraces? The answer must be enslaved people, starting with the Romans who knew how to make people build and keep on building. It’s a world heritage site all right, of rarely acknowledged millenniums of forced labor from one end to the other, from the middle of Spain to the Atlantic Ocean, through time and rivers of sweat. Way Further than the eye can see. The walls Probably would extend to the sun, laid end to end. How many hundreds of thousands of people worked building these interminable stone walls over 2000 years, just to grow….grapes?? WTF. And what happens to all the wine? Not a soul is seen working, just vast individual vines pushing towards the sun powering the land going through an endless cycle of growing and dying. The earth expressing itself with little help , except it’s impossible not to be overwhelmed by those fucking stone walls! how many billions of hours of manpower, hacking, piling, fitting, layering? For grapes? I guess if you think of it as a sustainable food supply once fermentated, okay then maybe. But where do all the used wine bottles end up? This Douro Valley business makes interdtate hoghways and chunnels look like amateur projects. It is indeed a world heritage site, in all respects.

Pinhao itself is nothing much, but the Vintage House restaurant is terrific (thank you Shirley!). They walled it off from the smelly train tracks (reminds me of the Pennsylvania railroad station in Baltimore) and gas station, and created a tropical oasis retaining  the view of the river and surrounding hills. Boat traffic on the river was steady but leisurely, and it wasn’t overcrowded in town. Blooming cinnamon scented roses and lemon blossoms scent the air along the river. 

The road to Regua hugs the riverbank, with great views (for the passenger!) all the way down past the dam (with a lock for boat traffic) and hundreds more miles of terraced vineyards. Regua is a kind of crossroads, so a good jumping off point for touring the region. 

Casa do Sao Domingos has a nice perch on the hillside above town. We’re sitting on the pool deck with a glass of port.

7 May

Tasting wine and olive oil at Quinta da Jalloto, a tiny producer overlooking the Douro way up above Pinhão; I had been hoping for a visit to Noval but they were booked. It was the second level busted play for today- we were gonna take a train to the end of the line upriver but there’s a strike, so instead we’re meandering on tiny roads up through this gorgeous landscape, having ever more respect for the effort- the vineyards are tidy and well groomed, even as the villages are shabby and crumbling. The vines and olive trees grow on rocks. There’s barely any soil, and what there is must be retained only by the stone walls.

9 May in the Minho region,  Vinho Verde DOC with some petty-natty reds. I tried one of those petnats tonight, with a recommendatio uh n from the wine shop. Smelled a bit like feet, tasted like something went wrong in the fermentation, but maybe that’s what they were after. That’s a bug on the label but maybe it’s actually a feature. Granite vat fermentation, wild yeasts, no aging; bright purple slightly fizzy juice, from Quinta da Raza, Vinhão varietal. Gave me a headache.

Another take on Vinho Verde red at lunch was more palatable, very light (10%) and slightly fizzy juice, served cold to be drunk in traditional ceramic bowls: Adega Ponte de Lima 2023, VV from the subregion of Lima. Refreshing - Cheryl compares it to Kombucha, kind of similar less vinegary.

11 May

And now for a completely different wine region: the Bairrada , which is around Coimbra. Tonight’s wine went well with a strong flavored lamb shank:

Another Bairrada red today, this one 100% Baga- complex with fruit , tannin and a bitter bite on the finish; good with pizza!

Another local wine region I’ve never tasted is called Beira. I had a red from there, just north of Coimbra- not much fruit, kinda sour and astringent. Not even worth recording.

Summary:

I like em all except the Beira and Vinho Verde Pet-nats 

Douro most reliably good, but so are most of the Alentejo, Lisbon, Setùbal and Bairrada. The one Dao I tried was also good.

Port- mixed bag for me- unless it’s a good single vintage or a long aged tawny, I find them too sweet and without much character. But when there is something of note that breaks through the sweetness, it is worth the effort and price.

This exploration will have to be continued on a future trip!