Portugal

In the 1930s, Colares was one of Europe's most prestigious wine regions. Today, just 22ha of its signature ungrafted old vines remain on the sandy dunes in Lisbon's backyard.Rising land prices have tempted many locals to sell their vineyards to developers, and the difficulty of growing grapes here has contributed to the shift to tourism. But Adega Viúva Gomes – run by father and son José and Diogo Baeta – shows that Colares still deserves to be revered.As well as coaxing extra layers of complexity out of vintages from the 1960s through long oak ageing in their cellars, the pair also craft brilliant interpretations of the region's terroirs from new plantings of Malvasia de Colares and Castelão bottled under the Pirata da Viúva label.Planting vines here is not straightforward, as it means digging 4m-deep trenches and directly placing them in the clay that sits under the sandy topsoil. Over the following years, the sand is gradually shovelled back into the trench by hand, stabilising the vine and preventing phylloxera. Propped up by short bamboo canes to keep bunches off the floor and surrounded by windbreaks made of reeds, these vines are grown with techniques as distinctive as the wines they make.Viúva Gomes's steely, saline Malvasia de Colares, with its beeswax and preserved lemon character, is aged for a year in French oak, while the silky, vivid red (from Ramisco) spends nearly a decade maturing in both French oak and Brazilian mahogany barrels to soften its legendary tannins.With annual production for the whole appellation down to a microscopic 6,500L, it’s little wonder that the official Colares wine bottle holds just 500ml, while older vintages from the 1960s hold a generous (!) 650ml. All have a savoury complexity that comes from being perfectly stored in the Baeta family cellars for over half a century.

Viúva Gomes

Wines

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