One day after Cheese 2017, my wife and I flew to Portugal for six days. It was sort of our last chance to take a short vacation before the Christmas rush and recharge our batteries.
After arriving in Porto, we headed north, specifically to Monção and Melgaço in the northern Minho region, where the best Alvarinhos are known to come from. In Monção, we stayed in a beautiful solar, but we discovered the best wines in Melgaço. The area is magical and very picturesque, with many small wineries selling their wine along the roadside. Cute, but not what we were looking for. 
Finally, on the second day, we ventured to visit one of the region's two most famous wineries, Quinta do Soalheiro. I had already contacted them in 2015, and the winemaker even remembered us, which was perfect.
We were able to tour the cellar and taste the wines, and immediately understood why the Alvarinho from Melgaço is so famous. It's simply very good, and the price is unbeatable. One more reason to now offer two wines from the Quinta here.
On Wednesday, we drove down into the Douro Valley, toward Pinhão. Following a spontaneous impulse, we visited Nuno and Antonio along the way. The two "garage winemakers" are the founders of a small project, like hundreds of others in Portugal. They have been producing Boina tinto since 2015 and Boina branco since 2016. The wines are interesting and have enjoyed considerable success in France, among other places, but we already tasted them last year and decided against including them in our program. We simply prefer the Contraste by Rita Marques of Conceito.
Funnily enough, Nuno and Antonio had just had a visit from the supplier of the Vinho Verde "Camaleão," whom you also know from us. The three of them are good friends and help each other out. A truly lovely afternoon!
On Thursday, we drove to Rita's in Cedovim. The nearly 60 kilometers took us over two hours, as the route took us along small, winding roads, but the weather and the scenery were so beautiful that we enjoyed the leisurely journey. Rita's new adega, whose construction work was only recently completed, is truly impressive: the cellars are brand new and blend perfectly into the landscape. Furthermore, it is completely energy-autonomous, year-round. The first wine we tried was the Contraste rosé and immediately placed an order for the last pallet. We then tried the Espumante 2014 Brut Natural made from 100% Grüner Veltliner, which was again excellent. Next, we tasted the various Conceito brancos and tintos, and of course, the 2015 Único tinto. We ordered 60 bottles of these—they were the only ones available. Unfortunately, the Único branco is already sold out.
Things got particularly exciting when we, Rita and Manuel, chose a Reserva quality exclusively for ourselves. 
We chose two barriques from the 2016 vintage. The wine will be bottled for us in April 2018, as a special series of only 600 bottles!
Rita, Manuel, and Rita's husband Luís have also launched a new project: they are making two "natural wines," one red and one white, from grapes from very old, forgotten vineyards in a region between the Douro and Dão rivers. The wines from this project bear the evocative name "Ontem," Portuguese for "yesterday." We tried them at lunch with the whole family. We had homemade black pudding and cabbage stew. The wines paired perfectly with this earthy meal, and we find them very interesting. We'll see if we'll import some.
Full and happy, we left Rita and her team again and headed for the Dão region, where we fell tired into bed.
The next day, we visited Álvaro Castro from Quinta de Saes and Quinta da Pellada. We started the wine tasting early at 10:00 a.m. It's really not easy, this life... ;)
The simple wines are very good, especially the reds. We also really liked his and our "bestseller": the Estagio Prolongado 2014, which we ordered right away. We currently have a few last bottles of the 2012 vintage. 
After the wine tasting, we headed to Matosinhos, the small port town north of Porto. We spontaneously stopped by Conserveira Pinhais, where we'd been turned away several times before. This time, however, we were lucky, and our persistence paid off: the new manager, Nuno, welcomed us warmly, showed us around the factory, and willingly explained everything.
In the evening, we treated ourselves to a beer on the beach and enjoyed the sunset, reflecting on the many experiences of the past few days. Now we're looking forward to the delivery of the various wines, which will gradually arrive. We'll keep you updated!
