Collectable (& very affordable) Colares

I’m on wine travels in Lisboa all this week with the Blend All About Wine team.  Seemingly we kicked off bang on trend with an orange wine.  Why “seemingly”?  Well because I doubt that many people would describe the near defunct Lisboa DOC of Colares (old spelling Collares) as on trend. What’s more the colour is about age as opposed to the wine being a sulphur free zone.

Lucozade orange! Viúva Gomes Collares 1969

It’s from 1969 and you can buy it for €12.50 from the ever so exciting Aladdin’s Cave which is Estado D’Alma Wine Shop in Lisbon – some pics below to lift that off the page.  But first, here’s a note on Viúva Gomes Collares 1969.

Viúva Gomes Collares 1969 (Collares)

We tasted two bottles – one with the original label (top) and one with a new label (below) – the old ones have run out!   Team Blend were split on which they preferred.  The second was slightly madeirised which made for a more consensual, sweeter, rounder palate.  But I liked the bone dry austerity of the first.  To me, the great whites of Lisbon (the below-mentioned Chardonnay included) have a taut, mineral acidity and the ’69 was balanced and complete, its vivacious acidity breathing life into every pore of the wine to reveal delicate orange peel and a pungent riff of fenugreek spice.  For Estado D’Alma’s sommelier João Chambel (the business also has a very good wine bar), it was perhaps the liveliest ’69 he has tasted.

More on Viúva Gomes and Colares to come after today’s visit to the region where I’ll be meeting my recent Blend interviewee Helder Cunha of Casca Wines and visiting Adega Colares and Casal Santa Maria (from whom Estado D’Alma have just purchased the best Chardonnay I’ve ever tasted from Portugal).

Estado D’Alma’s sommelier João Chambel

Ultra rare Barca Velha, 1952 the first

Stock-piling: buying up old collections at auction or direct is a speciality

Owner Tiago Paulo had just been shopping for “new” stock, here in the boot of his car