Six Fine Portuguese Wines

Precise and refined Dão white with wonderful saline freshness accompanying aromas of white flowers, citrus and beeswax, and strong backbone of acidity.

Refined Dão red from Niepoort's own vineyards, with great purity of wild cherry and woodland fruits and long, fresh palate.Irrespective of their home turf, Portugal’s winemakers love wines from the Dão region. Douro maverick Dirk Niepoort realised his dream and started making his own Dão wines in 2012, seeking out old vines and giving expression to local alfrocheiro, jaen and touriga nacional grapes.

Classy barrel-fermented blend from high-altitude vineyards, old vines, and numerous different indigenous grape varieties of Portugal. The aromas are of white fruits and flowers, the palate gentle in texture but with a reviving streak of minerality.

Vertente was first produced in 2000 to offer an approachable but ageworthy Portuguese wine as an introduction to Niepoort’s more premium Redoma and Batuta. Fragrant and elegant, with a new label since we last bought it, this has good underlying structure, with fine length and freshness.

In Portugal, 'first' vines (primeiras vinhas) are the old vines, here around 40 years old, which deliver the expected greater depth and complexity, but displayed in an exquisitely refined, pristine white with floral aromas and crystalline freshness.

A wine – and a producer – of real personality (they are not keen on certifications here but do farm sustainably) and higher-lying vineyards near Estremoz. This is a rich and savoury Portuguese red, full-bodied and vigorous yet already with complex secondary flavours and rounded tannins.