WINEINK

WORDS to DRINK BY

by KELLY J. HAYES

EXPLORING THE DOURO VALLEY

WINE IS ABOUT THE marriage of the old and the new. Ancient vineyards are reinvigorated by new generations of growers. Traditional winemaking practices enhance the quality of rediscovered varietals. You get the picture. e concept crystallized for me this past week when I ran into an old friend who is embarking upon a new adventure in wine. I have written about Donald Ziraldo in this space in the past. Charismatic and cultured, Ziraldo gained KELLY J. international acclaim HAYES when he and viticulturist Karl Kaiser successfully introduced an Old World wine style known as Eiswein to the New World. In the mid-s, the pair began leaving grapes on their vines on the Niagara Peninsula in Canada into the early days of winter. ey harvested the frozen clusters in the middle of the darkest, coldest nights of December before releasing the sugar-lled nectar of the grapes to make Inniskillin Ice Wines. e story has become legend and the brand became Canadas most recognizable contribution to the world of wine. Now, a quarter century removed from that rst vintage of Inniskillin, Ziraldo is taking his expertise and passion for wine to one of the worlds oldest wine regions, the Douro Valley of Portugal. Ziraldo is part of a team that has acquired a property in the heart of the Douro. Called Senhora Do Covento, the estate features a th-century monastery with a sinister history, acres, of which are planted with grapes, and most importantly, a newly constructed, state-of-the-art gravity ow winery building. is new chapter presents an incredible opportunity in a region that, though potentially fraught with peril due to the European debt crises, has the potential to become the next great place. Portugal and the Douro Valley have long been signicant players in the wine world. But that reputation stems largely from the production of the fortied wines known as Port that hail from the region. Today, however, the

buzz in this ancient valley is all about the potential for table wines made from the indigenous grapes Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Roriz, which is known as Tempranillo in Spain. ough I have had Port and the white Vinho Verde wines from

Portugals extreme northern reaches and, as a youth reveled in the cheap plonk that was bottled under the Mateus and Lancers labels (my wine of choice when I was hanging in front of Malibu Liquors looking for someone of age to accommodate my bad taste), I have never tasted

the newer bottling of these grapes. So, with certainty that I would nd a bottle or two to inspire this writing, I headed to Of Grape & Grain in town. Alas, though three shelves were stocked with excellent Port, there was nary a Portuguese table wine in the

PHOTO BY VICTORIA GILBERT

A S P E N T I M E S . C O M / W E E K LY

WINEINK

WORDS to DRINK BY

by KELLY J. HAYES

entire shop. In their stead, however, I found proprietor Gary Plumley, who was more than willing to share his knowledge and passion for a place he had visited a decade or so ago as a guest of Taylor Fladgate, one of the premium Port producers in the region. Gary gave me the . e Douro River, which has its headwaters in Spain, ows west to the Atlantic through a very steep valley. e slopes, many pitched to degrees (consider that Highland Bowl tops out at just under degrees at the

steepest points), were originally too steep to hold vines in the stony schist and granite soils. So in the th century, growers painstakingly built terraces out of rock to plant the grapes. Today many of these terraces remain, hosting hardy, low-slung vines with dark, deep purple, almost black, grapes that are amongst the most resilient on earth. e Douro ows through the valley to the port city of Porto, famous for being the home of, you got it, Port. For hundreds of years the growers up river would harvest the grapes and place them on boats called rabelos that run down river to Porto, where they could age in the Port Lodges as a the storage facilities in Porto are called. Today the river has ve signicant dams and the rabelos are now employed as tourist boats

running visitors up river. is historic valley, and the vines that cling to its hillsides, are being considered seriously by many signicant European winemakers as a place of enormous potential. If the economic situation can be stabilized and tourism takes hold, the Douro Valley of Portugal could become both a budding wine destination as well as a producer of hearty red wines. ink about places like the Barossa Valley of Australia, the Mendoza region of Argentina and even the Ribera del Duero in Portugals neighbor, Spain. All were largely regional suppliers of wine as recently as to years ago before they became recognized as hot spots. All that is old can be new again. While circumstances must converge to make it happen, the prescience of a man like Donald Ziraldo can only help speed the process. Kelly J. Hayes lives in the soonto-be-designated appellation of Old Snowmass with his wife, Linda, and a black Lab named Vino. He can be reached at malibukj@wineink.com.

A S P E N T I M E S W E E K LY

Fe b r u ar y - ,

PHOTOS BY VICTORIA GILBERT