After a stormy start to the day we took refuge in the large cavernous Alfandega building on the north side of the Douro in Porto, overlooking the port lodges of Gaia. This imposing structure housed the customs offices built to collect taxes from merchants sailing up the Douro but is now a museum and conference centre, ideal to accommodate the burgeoning number of vignerons gathering for Simplesmente every year.
Joao Tavares de Pina
An indie wine festival started some twenty years ago as an antidote to the more mainstream Essencia do Vinho Wine Festival, Simplesmente vinho has gone from strength to strength and now attracts over a hundred vignerons gathered round barrels ready to pour their wine into your glass and tell you their stories.
João Tavares de Pina – one of founding fathers of Simplesmente – popped out from behind a pillar and we chatted about various topics such as the importance of taking care of the soil, cover crops, not tilling the soil and the emergence of low intervention wines; a trend João embraced some years ago under the label Rufia. He also makes a curtimenta – orange wine which as we are all learning now is a white wine with some skin contact.
Crush555 Saperavi
Georgian wine maker and chef
This brought us on to the presence of at least a dozen Georgian wine makers at the event, all passionate about their wines aged in buried amphorae (qveri) an ancient technique that’s enjoying a revival and chimes with amphora or Talha wines which are becoming popular again especially in Alentejo. Joao explained that the Portuguese wine market is opening up to outsiders and enjoying wines from different countries.
Drawn by the sound of the Georgian contingent bursting into song across the room and filling the space with deep booming harmonies we enjoyed a bright delicious Saperavi wine Crush555 made by Nika Kandelaki and Venera, a dry Saperavi rosé made by Geo wine Supra in their Khaketi vineyards and served in their Georgian restaurant in Caldas da Rainha, central Portugal.
We also tasted some white wines made in qveri with several months of skin contact however the drying tannic flavours were a not appealing.
Luminoso Pet Nat
Lurdes from Quinta dos Termos
What was appealing were the various versions of curtimenta we tasted around the room including those of Courelas da Torre in northern Alentejo who also make an amazing Pet Nat called Luminoso, deliciously soft and frothy but linear with it. (Pet Nat is wine bottled before fermentation is complete).
Also making a lovely curtimenta is Quinta dos Termos of Belmonte in Beira interior. They also make a delicious white wine from a grape known as fonte Cal with lovely floral and honeyed flavours
Henrique Cizeron of Cizeron wines
Entre Pedras from Pico in Azores
Producers from the Azores were well represented with Adega do Vulcão and Entre Pedras showing some fine Arinto dos Açores with crisp mineral salinity. Samples of the lava that these grapes are grown on highlighted the harsh environment that these winemakers work in those rain lashed Atlantic islands. We are planning a visit in the Autumn so watch this space for more updates on Azores wines.
Last but by no means least Henriques Cizeron, flying wine-maker of Cizeron wines who makes wines in Vinho verde region, Tras-os-montes and Douro as well as New Zealand introduced us to a lovely Loureiro made with old oak barrels and battonage all part of a plan to elevate vinho verdes from the light, sugary spritzy level to something more sophisticated. His Tras-os-montes white was delicious and we await news of his Tras-os-montes red soon.
Simplesmente is well worth a visit and we ran into Edinburgh wine-lovers who had made the trip over to Porto for this wine festival. There are a lot of stands however and you would have to be pretty determined to get round them all. The list of vignerons is published on the website well in advance so you can plan your circuit of those that particularly appeal. Of the three days I would recommend the Friday as its quieter and the wine makers seem more open to chatting. Saturday was very busy with many young people making a night of it and it can be hard to engage.
