Carcavelos: Resurrecting a ‘Lost’ Wine Region

What do Europe’s three most famous fortified wine regions – Sherry, Port, and Madeira – have in common? All three developed to serve the export trade in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Which meant barrels of their wines had to be rolled onto sailing ships and then survive the impact of oxygen getting into the barrels as they flexed during movement and survive any bursts of heat in un-air conditioned holds. Adding a jolt of distilled wine – brandy – to the wines helped keep them fresh, free of bacteria, and drinkable on arrival.

During much of the 18th Century, the Marquis de Pombal dominated Portuguese politics, spearheaded the rebuilding of Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake, and laid down the rules for production of Port. He also grew grapes and made wine at his personal estate just to the west of Lisbon on the Atlantic Ocean coast. His summer home, the Villa Oeiras, remains a major tourist attraction, a 20 minute train ride from downtown Lisbon on the way to the beach.

Like Port and Madeira – but Different!
Pombal’s wines were fortified, like Port and Madeira, but made entirely differently. The grapes were a mixture of nine different white and red indigenous varietals, with Arinto, Gallego Dourado and Ratinho most important. This close to the ocean, humidity was always a problem as ripening proceeded, so the grapes were often picked on the lower side of ripeness, meaning they remained very high in acidity.

So winemakers adopted a trick. Most grapes were pressed off and fermented bone dry before enough grape spirit was added to ensure stability. Then a few buckets of unfermented grape juice were added to give enough sugar to balance the searing acidity. And then the wines rested in barrel for years and years, further softening the acid, integrating the spirit, and developing nutty, caramel, complexity.

Global Fame…And Decline
The wines of Carcavelos, as the region was known, quickly became a global hit. Thomas Jefferson enjoyed them, once placing this wine order with a broker: “I would prefer good Lisbon; next to that, Sherry, next to that Carcavallo [sic]; but still a good quality of the latter would be preferable to an indifferent quality of the former.” It was featured in Christie’s first ever London Wine Auction in the 1700s alongside Hock, Burgundy and Malaga. And when Napoleon cut off England’s supply of Port in the late 1800s, Carcavelos became the darling of London (although the Brits, unable to pronounce Carcavelos, simply called it “Lisbon wine.”

So what happened? Changing global fashion in favor of dry, unfortified, wines certainly didn’t help. But late 19th Century phylloxera wiped out much of the Carcavelos vineyard. And then the relentless expansion of Lisbon’s suburbs took care of what little remained. By the 1980s, only 25 hectares of vines remained and only two wineries – both of which were helmed by aged vintners who had no one in their family to replace them.

Villa Oeiras Carcavelos

A Region Reborn
Enter Villa Oeiras, a new winery created in 1982 by Portugal’s Ministry of Agriculture and the municipal government of Oeiras and, today, the only commercial producer in the region. Using the Marquis de Pombal’s summer estate as a base, the winery made two barrels of Carcavelos in 1982 from vines remaining on the estate. Today they’ve expanded their vineyards to 12.5 hectares using cuttings from the old heritage vines that survived at Pombal. And the cellars of the Villa are now filled with hundreds of barrels of Carcavelos slowly aging their way to perfection.

Over time, we can hope to see more Carcavelos. The team at Villa Oeiras is working to plant more vineyards and providing technical support and advice to several new wineries getting off the ground. But it takes a while, since the minimum aging for Carcavelos is five years in wood before bottling and release. Other than a tiny bit of wine coming from the cellars of Quinta Dos Pesos (defunct since 2005), Villa Oeiras is the only Carcavelos you’ll find in the USA. Fortunately, it’s really, really, good!

A Trip to Austria’s Burgenland – with Steindorfer’s Blaufrankisch

This week, we’re taking a trip away from the Rhone and Napa to the shores of Lake Neusiedl in Austria’s Burgenland region. There you’ll find the vines and winery of the father/son team of Ernst and Roland Steindorfer. And some of the most outstanding red wine values anywhere.

The red grape here is Austria’s most important high-quality varietal, Blaufränkisch. Like Gamay, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Aligote, it’s a descendent of the obscure Gouais Blanc grape grown in France in the Middle Ages. It seems to have emerged from a wild crossing in what is now Austria, and by the mid-18th Century was widely planted and known as Lemberger (a name you’ll still see where it’s planted in the USA).

Burgenland Climate. While you’ll find Blaufränkisch across Austria today, it really thrives in the eastern province of Burgenland. Burgenland was, for years and years, the poorest, most economically isolated region in all of Austria – electricity didn’t reach most homes until the last quarter of the 20th Century! It’s also one of the flattest areas of Austria – a bump 80 feet high is called a “hill” here – and one of the warmest as hot breezes flow westward from the Pannonian Plain to the east. And, while daytime temperatures can soar, the long, shallow (only 3 feet deep!) glacial Lake Neusiedl both cools the region during the early growing season – capturing freshness – and then releases stored warmth to let red grapes ripen to perfection in the fall.

And Ernst and Roland Steindorfer know what to do with ripe red grapes. Ernst started his winemaking career working with sweet wine legend Alois Kracher, who took advantage of the autumn fogs coming off Lake Neusiedl to cultivate “noble rot” and make glorious sweet wines. When he started his own estate, though, Ernst focused mainly on dry red and white wines (although he still makes a pretty mean stickie himself!).

Although the grape is old and the farming here very natural and traditional, the winemaking is frankly modern. After a warm, gently extractive fermentation in tank, Ernst and Roland rack their top reds into high-quality new French oak casks. The wines have the stuffing to handle the new wood, especially since the Steindorfers choose to use larger, 500 liter barrels that are more than twice the size of Bordeaux barriques. The 17 months in wood elevates Blaufränkisch’s natural spice and smooths out tannins without attenuating the rich, ripe fruit flavors at all.

What’s the wine like? It’s wonderfully aromatic, serving up a perfume of sweet black cherry and brambly berries, cracked black pepper, and a big dose of baking spice from both the grape’s own character and 17 months in new 500L French oak casks. The palate is a captivating blend of richness – ripe black cherry flavors and a velvety feel – and freshening lift – fine-grained tannins and a pop of pepper and spice. The supple, warming finish flows on nicely, with enough grip to handle a steak or lamb or pork but supple enough to simply enjoy by a fire.

Steindorfer Blaufrankisch Reserve 2017

Bringing Back Boca – Nebbiolo’s First Home

If you knew nothing more about Davide Carlone Boca than what you found in your glass tonight (or in 20 years) and the silly low price you paid for it, you’d be deeply impressed and delighted.

Layer in some background, though, and this isn’t only a wine you’ll love drinking; it’s a story you’ll want to be part of now and for years to come.

The Most Important Nebbiolo Vineyards in the World. Before Barolo and Barbaresco were big deals, the most important and expansive vineyards of Piemonte were to the north in what is now called Alto-Piemonte. In communes like Gattinara, Ghemme, Lessona, Bramaterra and – farthest north of all – Boca were covered in vines running right into the foothills of the Alps. Until the mid-20th Century, these were the most important Nebbiolo vineyards in the world; Barolo and Barbaresco were newcomers.

As late as the 1950s, there were more than 4,000 hectares of vines in Boca alone. By the early 1980s, only three hectares of producing vines remained. The rest were abandoned and most rapidly reverting to forest. The region had been dealt blows by late 19th-century phylloxera, two World Wars and the Great Depression. Still, Boca’s fame was great enough that it was awarded a DOC in 1969. But the near-deathknell for Boca and most of Alto-Piemonte was the massive industrialization of Turin and Milan in the 1970s, creating jobs that luring more and more of the population south in search of paying work.

Saving Boca. By the early 1980s only three hectares of producing Boca vineyards remained. Then teenager Davide Carlone helped his grandfather tend one of them. Although he soon went to work in the family machine shop, Davide never lost his love for Boca’s vines. And when outside investors created the Le Pianelle winery in nearby Bramaterra in 2004, Davide realized that he could finally find buyers for his grapes.

So over the past 20 years, he’s gradually and painstakingly tended his own old vines and reclaimed abandoned sites across Boca.

Today Davide still sells most of his fruit to others, but keeps the very best grapes from his three hectares of vines (one-third of the 15 ha of all of Boca today) for himself.

A Few Hundred Cases for the World. The farming is organic and the winemaking natural and traditional. His Boca is the traditional blend of around 70% Nebbiolo – called Spanna here – with 30% Vespolina adding some softness and floral perfume. Fermentations are with the yeast on the grape skins and floating in the air and aging is in three large chestnut barrels (Davide’s only barrels!) for 2+ years. At the end of the day, only a few hundred cases are bottled for the whole world.

As Antonio Galloni – who encouraged Davide to start bottling his own wine a decade ago – says, “Make a note of Davide Carlone. These wines will become super-hot as soon as consumers start to discover them.” And in certain circles, these wines are “hot” indeed. But Davide? Not so much. He still works in the family machine shop to make ends meet. He’s still never been in an airplane and rarely as far south as Rome. He’s content to stay put, work hard, and help revive the fortunes of his home town.

Again, I can’t stress enough this simple fact: The 2015 Davide Carlone Boca is utterly, compellingly, and completely delicious and you should buy and enjoy some whether your care about Davide and the fortunes of Boca or not.

But $29.99/ea by the case is pretty small price to pay to join in one of the best stories in the wine world today. Let’s sign you up!