Well I can honestly say, that this week I had no idea what to expect from my last wine from Portugal. My first red was no good, but the second bottle, which was a white, turned out to be amazing. I was a little nervous about trying a second red, but I figured that an entire region would not be able to let me down twice right?
This red was also made from a selection of Portuguese grapes. It was 35% Tinta-Roriz, 35% Alfrocheiro, and 30% Touriga-Nacional.
I hoped that this would turn out to be one of the “elegant reds” that this area of Portugal was known for. I crossed my fingers and then sat down to get to business.
This wine was from the Rio Maior, Portugal and sampled on April 28, 2017. This wine had a nice red color to it. Within the scents of this wine came an interesting black tea smell with a bit of plum. I found this very interesting and a bit surprising. I had never smelled tea in a wine before. The first taste brought very bold and jammy flavors. I was listening to “Ocean Eyes” by Billie Eilish. I paired this wine with pork steak and Swiss cheese. The cheese actually took down the boldness a notch. The smokiness of the pork steak also provided quite a nice compliment to the jamminess of the wine. It even brought out a subtle blackberry taste that I had not noted before.
I gave this wine a rating of 3.5. It was a solid wine on it’s own and I think pairing it with the pork steak turned it into a very good wine.