Portugal’s Alentejo - Wine & Spirits Magazine

Vintage Reports

Portugal’s Alentejo

by Joshua Greene • March 1, 2022

2020

After the dry 2019 season, a rainy winter and spring replenished moisture reserves in the soil. For some growers, May showers brought a bout with mildew. Then heat in July and August led to challenges with sunburn after veraison. In the south, around Reguengos de Monsaraz, Esporão reported an early start to harvest before the maturation of the grapes turned more gradual, extending the season. In the north, temperatures cooled in August and the harvest ran from the middle of the month through mid-October. Overall, yields were up 23 percent from 2019 and volume was up 15 percent.

2019

A dry season, 2019 started with a warm spring and early summer, before temperatures moderated for a relatively cool veraison. Harvest started early, at the end of July. In the north, in the hills above Portalegre, the Symingtons reported some rain during August at their vineyard, Fonte Souto, where wide diurnal shifts in temperature sustained freshness in the grapes. The region’s production was down nine percent from 2018. The top reds in our tastings were ripe and bold.

2018

A cold, dry winter led to plenty of rain in spring, when cool weather slowed the progress of the vines. Heat spikes in August combined with dry winds to scald some of the grapes. The heat caused many vines to shut down, delaying maturation. Harvest was two to three weeks later than usual, with some growers reporting significant loss in production while for others the outcome was more generous. After three years of low-yielding harvests, the region was up 23 percent in grapes and 16 percent in wine from 2017. The best of the reds we tasted were both rich and bright, sustaining freshness in spite of the heat.

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Joshua Greene

Joshua Greene is the editor and publisher of Wine & Spirits magazine.

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David Paradela
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David joined Wine & Spirits in 2021 after immersing himself in the world of wine at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally from Boston, he graduated from Boston University with a degree in English and completed a master’s degree in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College in 2021. Prior to working at the magazine, he served as an editor and staff writer for the music blog Sound of Boston and worked in scientific publishing. Aside from wine, he loves basketball, arguing about Taylor Swift’s best album, and everything Greta Gerwig touches.

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Corey Warren moved to New York in 2015—fifteen years too late to join The Strokes—after earning a degree at Cornell in Comparative Literature. He started polishing glasses at Betony and threw himself into the restaurant world. Later, while a captain at Aquavit, he began working part time in the Wine & Spirits tasting department. Now, in addition to running tastings, he serves as critic for the wines of the Loire, Southern France, Argentina and South Africa. Corey likes almost anything bubbly, from Miller High Life, the Champagne of beers, to Champagne, the Champagne of Champagne, but he’ll drink anything once, and loves finding unique wines.

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Editor and Publisher of Wine & Spirits since 1986, Joshua Greene began drinking wine with meals during a summer in Galicia, Spain, at the age of 13. In later years, he worked in wine shops in western Massachusetts and served as wine captain at Wheatleigh, a small inn in Lenox. After graduating from Princeton University in 1981, Greene pursued a career in magazines, focusing on the management of special-interest publications. His work with Wine & Spirits began on a consulting basis, eventually leading to his purchase of the magazine in 1989.

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Patricio Tapia
Senior Correspondent

After graduating with a degree in journalism from the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Patricio Tapia attended Bordeaux University in France, where he studied for a diploma in wine tasting and winemaking. Since then, he has visited wine regions around the world and authored several books, including his annual Descorchados, a Chilean wine guide; The Wines of Colchagua Valley; TodoVino and Wines for Great Occasions. Tapia is also the South American correspondent for The Oxford Companion to Wine, The World Atlas of Wine and Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Book. For the past three years, he’s been a host on the El Gourmet channel in South America. At Wine & Spirits, Tapia is the critic for the wines of Argentina, Chile and Spain, and regularly contributes articles on these regions.