Dao

Big, bold, tannic and dry.  V-e-r-y dry.  That's what we remember about Portuguese Dao from about fifty years ago.  But things change in the world's commercial wine industry and success and investment money breed imitation.  Much from Old Europe is now a little less dry and a little less tannic, reflecting the new New World palate.  

Fifty years ago wine was weird for most of us.  Beer and liquor were our mainstream beverages.  Wine was weird.  At that time, Mateus Rose was a popular Portuguese product marketed by Sogrape, the largest producer of Dao wines.  It was a game changer for many of us and in hindsight, it was a good introduction to the world of wine.

Today wine is a part of our culture.  So we were stunned when we tasted the 2018 Casa da Passarella Porguguese Dao.  It was as if we flashed back fifty years to that simpler time when wines more accurately reflected their European roots and not the modern Americanized version.  In all honesty, this Dao is the most European wine in the store.

The Douro Valley is the most famous wine region of Portugal.  Along with Vinho Verde to the west, Douro occupies the northernmost part of that country.  Douro is known for Port wine and the great grape there is Touriga Nacional which has its origins just to the south in Dao.  

Remember the Phoenicians from a couple posts ago?  They were the world's first wine traders and in all likelihood, they were responsible for making Dao one of the oldest viticultural sites in the region.  Dao is a plateau (500-1500 ft elev.) surrounded on three sides by mountains with the Dao River running through it.  The climate is temperate, moderated by the conditions just described, with long hot summers and rainy winters.  The soils are granite and schist and the diurnal temperature shifts there beneficially enhance the grape acidity to balance its fruit.

In our research for this post we consulted three websites.  All were informative but portugal.com went further.  They call Dao "Portuguese Burgundy."  High praise, since Burgundy is the finest wine region in the world.  They say Dao exhibits "complexity, elegance, balance and maturity."  We also found a review for this wine that said, "powerful, concentrated, not weighty but intense with blackfruits giving it richness."

Food affinities should include any red meat dish that is noticably spiced, preferably with a sauce or gravy.  Stew would be nice.  Decant.