Baga: the best of traditions

on 11/03/2013 at 8:48 am

Check out this old wine map of Portugal, from the 1950s apparently. There’s no mention of the Alentejo or Douro wine regions (just Port for the Douro).

It partly explains why, when Luis Pato produced his first Baga in 1980 (pictured below), Bairrada’s wines were at the height of fashion. Fondly recalling how well this still glorious expression of Baga was received at a Bairrada tasting in London in 1984, Pato told me that its success set him on his path to full-time winemaking.

Though Bairrada and its emblematic red grape – the high in acid and high in tannin Baga – long since lost out in the popularity stakes to the Douro’s and Alentejo’s fleshier relatively approachable wines, watch this space. Last month Mário Sérgio Alves Nuno of Quinta das Bageiras was named Revista de Vinhos’ Producer of the Year. The fourth generation wine vigneron tells me he can’t release his wines soon enough for the market.

There are high profile newcomers too. Today I visit Parisian wine merchant François Chasans’ estate (Quinta da Vacariça) and Port/Douro producer Niepoort’s new Bairrada venture (Quinta do Baixo). On Friday I met with João Póvoa of Kompassus Wines for whom Vinho Verde guru Anselmo Mendes is now consulting full time.

All five mentioned producers together with António Rocha (Buçaco Wines), Filipa Pato (Filipa Pato Wines) and Paulo Sousa (Sidónio de Sousa Wines) form the gang of eight known as Baga Friends. Their aim is to showcase Bairrada’s potential for great wines, especially Baga (a swathe of which has been grubbed up in favour of trendier more user-friendly varieties like Touriga Nacional, Merlot and Cabernet). Also close to their hearts are Bairrada’s other traditional strengths – white and sparkling wines made predominantly from Maria Gomes and Bical.

I’m not expecting their singular, ageworthy wines to hit a supermarket near you soon. Low yields are key to the success of Baga and account for its wines’ formidable (but no longer forbidding) structure. And refreshingly, the focus on tradition doesn’t stop there, as you’ll see from these pictures of this charming region.