For The Love Of Port

Everyone can see that the Douro wine forum is not very active compared to the Port one.

So I was wandering if you have the same interest about Douro dry wine than Port?

Or,
is it because there are no wines available at your wine shop?
is it because when it comes to wine, you turn to other region?
did you have bad experience with Douro wines in the past and are not ready to try again?

For myself, I'm craving Douro wines as much as Port. I just find most of them are full of personnality and I like the tradition of using native grapes. For me they generate much more excitment than the usual Cabernet/merlot blend we can find everywhere else... After Bordeaux and Burgundy, it is the place, IMHO, that the terroir is the most reflected in the wines.

What about you?

Frederic,

For me, the reason that I don't post on the Table Wine forum is the same reason that I don't post tasting notes on any wines other than port - life is too short to try all the wines I would like to try, so I decided some years ago just to enjoy one type of wine in depth and others types of wine as and when the opportunity comes up.

For this reason, my cellar is slowly changing from a balanced cellar to a cellar dominated by port. I buy very little table wine these days.

I rarely drink portuguese table wine, but that is because I rarely drink any table wine. If I want to have a glass of wine with my meal in the evening, I will open and decant a bottle of VP. In a year, I would estimate that 75-80% of the botles I open will be VP.

For me, table wine is something that I drink when I am out in the evening at a work dinner and wine is served with the meal.

Its not that I lack interest in Portuguese table wines, its that I lack time to appreciate them properly.

Alex

Even this post, deserves to move to the Douro Wine Forum as it does not belong here. But have you seen me "delete or change" a single Port EVER on this BB yet? I hope I never have to.

Regardless of that, I believe that Douro reds are somewhat terroir driven but far more driven by the fact that there is a relationship beween the grape varieties used and the place they are grown. Some may call that terroir, but I don't.

Fred, having been to the Douro you understand that many of the wines that you were privileged to try, just are not available in N. America. Be it scarcity, obtaining of "cult status" in Portugal, low yields and production or a lacking/oversight by importers on this continent ... the fact remains the same.

For me it's just very hard to find decent Douro table wines where I live. Otherwise i would buy/drink more.

Happy Thanksgiving (for those of us celebrating the holiday)

I'm off to eat lots of good food, talk to you all soon.

Roy Hersh wrote:Even this post, deserves to move to the Douro Wine Forum as it does not belong here. But have you seen me "delete or change" a single Port EVER on this BB yet? I hope I never have to.

Agreed. On all counts . . .

That said, Douro table wines are the exact same as California wines, or those from Washington State. More are consumed "in-country" than "out-," and the farther one travels away from the region of production, the less one finds in the marketplace. This is true for every region, even Bordeaux! Can you imagine how true it is for a minor region? (And, I think everyone would agree, despite the total volume of wine Portugal produces annually, the category of "Douro table wine" -- no matter how much some of us may love them -- remains a relatively minor player on the world market.)

I remember reading somewhere than approximately 70 percent of all California wine is consumed IN the State of California. And, according to The Wine Institute, California -- on its own -- would rank fourth overall on the list of largest wine-producing nations, behind France, Italy and Spain. If 70 percent of the wine made by the 4th largest wine producing "nation" is consumed within its borders, how much Douro table wine can one expect to find on the shelves at the local wine merchant?

Cheers,
Jason

I agree that I could have post this in the douro table wine section but the reason was to get those who don't read it to react.

I also agree that there is not as much choice as other region like Spain,France and Italy on the shelves when it comes to Douro table wine. I've made some search on wine-searcher to find out there was not much in the US.

Here in Canada the situation is better mainly because we don't drink a lot of the local canadian wine, it is not yet good enough to supply everyday drinking of Canadian. That's why we have to turn to other country and import more wines from other countries.

In Quebec, much of the exciting wines are from private importers who sell most to restaurant, but in Ontario, 1-2 new wines comes on the market each month with some very interesting ones.

Keep your eyes open because Douro table wine offers great QPR and once one wine is going to be #1 of WS the price are going to rise significantly, just has it did with Chateau neuf du Pape recently.

Fred_Quebec wrote: I also agree that there is not as much choice as other region like Spain,France and Italy on the shelves when it comes to Douro table wine. I've made some search on wine-searcher to find out there was not much in the US.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that wine-searcher has everything. Far from it! There are quite good selections of Portuguese table wines (including those from the Douro) in areas where there are either a sizeable population of Portuguese descendents (think Boston), wherever there are specialty stores (like the Spanish Table in Seattle and Berkeley), or wherever you have importers forcused on Portugal (such as Broadbent Selections in San Francisco, HGC in San Jose, Admiral in New Jersey).

Fred_Quebec wrote: Keep your eyes open because Douro table wine offers great QPR and once one wine is going to be #1 of WS the price are going to rise significantly, just has it did with Chateau neuf du Pape recently.

I don't think anyone who has tasted the wines doubts their quality or their potential, but I do wish you'd keep quiet about it -- do you WANT to pay more?!?!?!