Wine Life - Houston

As seen in the March 2018 issue of Galveston Monthly magazine

As originally seen in the February 2019 issue of Galveston Monthly magazine

One of my favorite visits during my recent to trip to the Dâo was to Casa da Passarella located in the Serra da Estrela subregion. Casa da Passarella is a historic wine house which began producing in 1892. The estate was instrumental in the creation of the official Dâo wine region demarcated map in 1908. The Dâo region is the oldest for still wine in Portugal. The Cabral family now owns the estate and has worked hard to maintain the traditions and the stories of those who were there first, their slogan is "Stories written in wine." Fortunately, while some of the history has been lost to the past, fanciful legends now fill in the blanks. Paolo Nunez, the winemaker at the property since 2008, greeted us in the courtyard. He shared that he was born in Douro where he studied enology. He had tasted Dâo wine and liked the more refined style from the region. He wanted to make this type of wine rather than fortified Ports so he came to the region in 2003 to work as a consulta...

When two wine samples arrived from the Salice Salentino region of Italy, I quickly realized how limited I was in my knowledge of this area. Although I had met one producer from Puglia a few years ago, I had not encountered any other wines from the region besides his since then. A quick search of some wine textbooks from previous classes showed me that I was not mistaken, I really had not learned much about this area during my formal wine education at all, my WSET-3 textbook, for example, had one sentence regarding Salice Salentino in their two paragraph coverage of all of Puglia. It seemed a little research was in order. Puglia is located in southeast Italy in what is commonly referred to as "the heel of the Italian boot" surrounded by both the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. The climate is sunny, warm and dry with a good diurnal shift making it ideal for many types of agriculture along with grape growing. Salice Salentino is located in the southern part of the region near the ce...

As originally seen in the January 2019 issue of Galveston Monthly magazine.

Paco dos Cunhas de Santar is a 17th century manor house in Santar village in the Dão wine region of Portugal. It has an interesting history, it was originally owned by a family named Cunhas who produced olive oil, fruit, and wine. They were connected to the Spanish monarchy. When Portugal regained its independence, the local population destroyed the property in retaliation and it was left empty. Global Wines , who owns multiple properties and brands in wine regions throughout Portugal, purchased the estate in 2002. Restoring the property has been a long process with the vineyards being the top priority, all of the surrounding 20 hectares of vines have been organically grown since 2007, they launched the first organic wine from the estate in 2012. The original manor house has been restored and now includes a wine shop, event space, and restaurant. It is tourist friendly offering both winery and vineyard tours, along with wine tastings. The tastings are outside on the terrace when t...

Luís Lourenco met our group at Quinta dos Roques, a 35 hectare property in Cunha Baixa in the Dão wine region of Portugal. He had set up a tasting of his sustainably made wines from that estate alongside wines from his slightly smaller, 25 hectare organic property, Quinta das Mais. Lourenco's family has owned a portion of the property for generations. In addition to grapevines, they used to farm a diverse array of crops, they determined that to be more profitable they needed to specialize in wine grapes. They bought some surrounding land and the Quinta das Mais property in the late 1990s which is located nearby and continued to focus strictly on growing grapes for wine making. Lourenco said the family made a choice to only use local grape varieties to make true Dão wines. Their main red grapes are Jaen and Touriga Nacional with some Alfrocheiro, Tinta Roriz, and Tinto Cão. Their main white grapes are Malvasia Fina and Encruzado with some Bical, Cerceal Branco, and Gouve...