Something has happened to methat has never happend before: I have completely lost my sense of taste and smell. I caught a very nasty bug (almost certainly from one of the children) towards the middle last month and by Christmas Day, alongside all the symptoms of a heavy cold, I couldn’t taste a thing. The only way that I could distinguish turkey from potato by its texture! It meant that I couldn’t really enjoy the wines that I had put aside for Christmas: Henriot 1996 and Chateau Cos d’Estournel 1990, both of which I know to be rather good. Now we are well into the New Year and I still can’t smell anything: the house might be burning down and I wouldn’t know it! I can just about taste acidity, salt and sweetness but none of the subtleties have come back as yet. It is beginning to worry me, especially as I am well into a course of anti-biotics to rid myself of the infection and I need to be able to smell and taste wines again soon!  Anyway 2012 is the year when we have our full range of wines up and running: Pedra Basta 2009, Duas Pedras 2010 and our latest wine, Pedra e Alma 2009. This will be launched in the UK at the Richards Walford Portfolio Tasting in London on 25^th January. I hope to be able to taste again by then!         

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To Dublin for a dinner accompanied by our wines at Patrick Guilbauld’s Michelin two star restaurant at the Merrion Hotel. I just can’t visit Dublin without tasting the ‘black stuff’ so, just before dinner, I pop into one of my favourite bars, Doherny and Nesbitt near the Dáil on Lower Baggot Street. The place is crammed with Friday night drinkers and, carrying a bag of bottles already uncorked for the dinner, I struggle to reach the bar. After a number of ‘excuse-mes’ I finally get my glass of Guinness and strike up conversation with a small group at the bar alongside me. One member of the party works for the FT in Dublin and, seeing my bag of bottles, he calls across to the barman for a glass to hold an impromptu tasting. It could only happen in Dublin! The dinner that follows is fabulous. It has been organised by Terroirs, our Irish importers. Terroirs is owned and run by Sean and Fancoise Gilley, an Irish-French husband and wife team. I first met them in a jacuzzi in the Napa valley twenty years ago and, with a shop on one of the best roads leading out of town, they import and sell a good range of wines with considerable style and flair. The dinner tonight is six courses beginning with Dublin Bay prawns, followed by a confit of aubergine, pressed game and foie gras terrine, ‘Roast Native Red Deer’, Irish Cheeses and finishing with ‘Madeira Baba’. I worry that the food will out shadow our wines but everything we serve seems to stand up well, especially Pedra e Alma 2009 which is on show for this first time and is perfect with the venison and the cheese. The Madeira baba is made to go with Blandy’s Alvada, a deliciously easy-going 5 year old blend of Malvasia and Bual. After another tasting in the Terroirs shop the next morning I board the plane feeling rather worse for wear. How is it that I never seem to leave Dublin without a hangover?!

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To London: on a cold Monday evening over 300 members of the Wine Society congregate at the Merchant Taylor’s Hall in the City to taste Portuguese wines. No other wine merchant in the UK, perhaps in the world, could put on such a show with 49 Portuguese wines here to taste. There is a sideroom where a few journalists are tasting quietly before the main event. For me the highlights are a lovely minerally dry Douro white from Lavradores de Feitoria, a relatively inexpensive (£8.95) pure, unoaked Touriga Nacional from Castello d’Alba (sounds Italian), a savoury well-integrated oaked Touriga called Vinhas do Lasso from Alenquer and Quinta Vale D. Maria 2008, a well-structured yet fine-grained Douro classic. There were some good Ports too (see relevant section of this website for details). Then the onslaught as I stand pouring our own wines to over 300 people for a couple of hours. I receive excellent feedback for Duas Pedras 2009 which is on show to the public for the first time and it is gratifying that a number of people come back to tell me it is their favourite wine in the tasting. Pedra Basta 2008 also shows well. With its oak-age I find it tasting more Rioja-like over time, part of its appeal at this consumer tasting I think. It is to be hoped that enthusiasm I pick up here converts itself into pre-Christmas sales of Portuguese wine.      

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There is a Portuguese saying that goes ‘no dia de São Martinho vai à adega e prova o teu vinho’ (on St Martin’s Day go to the winery and taste your wine). There is some sense in this as by São Maritinho (11th November) your wines are likely to have gone through malo-lactic and they are ready to assess. So this morning I was in the adega and I did just that; I tasted all our wines from the 2011 vintage. I can report that they are looking good and some are very good. The weakest, as I expected, was the Trincadeira from the younger vines which we harvested a bit too early in retrospect. It is elegant but rather too light and short. (I have love-hate relationship with this grape which is fast turning to hate–hate!). The Alicante Bouschet (2003 vines) on the other hand is wonderful; dark, fresh, vibrant with lovely depth and structure. The Aragonez from the young vines (2006) isn’t bad either, fresh, aromatic, attractive if a little lacking in depth. The Syrah /Touriga Nacional / Viognier, now blended and in the same vat, is dark, already delicious and well structured. It will make a wonderful Duas Pedras 2011. The best wines come from my old vines with the Aragonez still showing signs of the malo-lactic on the nose but tastes firm and four-square with good ripe tannins. Our best wine without doubt is the old vine Alicante Boushet / Grand Noir / Trincadeira blend which has a wonderfully fresh, vibrant aroma, shows sweet ripe fruit and broad ripe tannins. A certain candidate for Pedra e Alma 2011 I think.

This afternoon, forgetting all about São Martinho, I went to the chemist in Castelo de Vide where I was offered roasted chestnuts and a glass of their homemade liqueur.  I politely refused the liqueur but the lady  pharmacist was most insistent and handed me a glass nonetheless. So I quickly downed this sweet, green liqueur made from under-ripe walnuts and I left the chemist feeling a bit wobbly but much better than when I went in!         

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It is with great honour and pleasure that I can announce that our wine, Pedra Basta 2008, was served at a dinner hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at St. James’s Palace last night. The dinner held on the eve of Remembrance Day was in aid of the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, England.

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