learning portuguese

If there is one skill I possess, it is the art of procrastination. Today is Friday. And I'm blogging about the wine tasting/barbecue we held at our house last Sunday.

Anyway.

It was our turn to host our wine-tasting group, so we invited everyone up to Chickenland and told them to bring a bottle of dry Portuguese red. (Because if there's an ethnicity he can claim, it's part-Portuguese.) We ended up with 18 guests and 13 bottles of red wine (only two of which were repeats -- pretty remarkable considering Portuguese red isn't exactly the type of thing you'd find at the corner store -- well, except for maybe Lancers, but they only make a white and a pink).

Most of the wines we tasted were 03s from Douro. The Douro valley lies between Porto and the Spanish border. It's already well-known for its Port, but has recently started receiving more attention for its dry reds, which we're beginning to see more of here in the U.S. market. The majority of dry Portuguese reds are relatively inexpensive, so we were hoping our tasting would help us find a good house wine for everyday drinking.

After tallying up the group's votes (which took awhile, since we were a gigantic group this time around), the wines we tasted were ranked in this order (and I am really hoping I got all of these names right -- this was my first time trying to decipher Portuguese labels):

1. Ramos Pinto 2003 Adriano Red Douro
2. Altano Reserva 2003 Douro
3. Quinta Dos Quatro Ventos 2004 Douro
4. Encostas do Douro Vinha da Palestra 2003 Douro
5. Post Scriptum de Chryseia 2004 Douro
6. (tie) Altano Reserva 2003 Douro and Adriano Ramos Pinto Duas Quintas 2003 Douro
8. Aveleda Charamba 2004 Douro
9. Quinta de Aveleda 2001 Aveleda Estremadura
10. Lavradores de Feitoria 2004 Douro
11. Niepoort Vertente 2003 Douro
12. Caves Primavera 2002 Beiras
13. Caves Primavera 2002 Beiras

Some interesting things to note: How one bottle of Altano Reserva scored much better than the other bottle of the same wine. How everyone pretty much panned the Caves Primavera (and rightfully so -- the last-place bottle was oxidized); this was the cheapest wine in the tasting -- only $4.99. How a wine that scored 89 points in the Spectator got first place, while a wine that received 90 points from the Wine Advocate came in third place (it was also our wine -- we wanted to see if it was really 90-point-worthy). Which makes me ask: Is there really a difference between 89 and 90 points?

Also worth noting: My first-place wine was the Quinta de Aveleda 2001 Aveleda Estremadura, which wasn't exactly popular with everyone else. But I think this is pretty typical of my palate -- this was the oldest wine in the tasting, and I tend to like older wines. And while others thought the wine was muted, I thought it had nice cherry flavors that weren't overwhelming and would pair well with food. It wasn't an in-your-face wine, and that was what I liked about it.

The more I think about our tasting group, the more I feel like so many factors can affect how you taste wines. For example, this time around, the group was huge, and since our house is extremely small (and slightly box-like in a quaint way), we were all sitting outside in the afternoon sun. The heat could've affected bottle temperature (in fact, the only wine that was really served at the ideal temperature -- which is slightly cooler than room temperature for reds -- was the Ramos Pinto 2003 Adriano Red Douro -- you could tell it had been stored in someone's wine refrigerator before the tasting). The sunlight could've also affected evaluation of color -- the way the sun was shining where I was sitting, at least, I had trouble distinguishing between different hues of red (except for the Caves Primavera, which was distinctly murky and brown).

Also, there's the people around you. At work, we taste in total silence, and no one talks until all rankings are in and the wines/scores are being discussed. I love this. It means my opinion won't be influenced by what the person next to me thinks. But at our tasting group, people tend to announce what they're tasting: "Oh! Pepper!" and "So much fruit!" and "That wine should've never been created!" So of course, others at the table are going to hear that, and it's going to influence how they taste the wine and whether they like it or not. Maybe I'm a stickler and anti-social, but I tend to prefer the serious, silent tasting -- I feel like it's a truer indicator and makes for better discussions afterward -- there's no succumbing to peer pressure.

Anyway, after evaluating the wines, we fired up the barbecues (yes, plural). There was lots of amazing food -- lamb sausage (straight from the ranch -- one of my coworkers raises lambs and I bought sausage from him -- you know how I am about wanting to know where my food comes from), pulled pork (made with apple cider), a tri-color potato salad with no mayo (made instead with mustard, capers, vinegar and fennel) and Pacific red snapper rubbed with chili and lime.

All in all, a nice party. We were exhausted afterwards -- 18 guests is the most we've ever entertained!