Charamba 2005 Douro (Portugal)

When I first opened this wine, I noticed the cork was stained red almost to the top. In the glass, it smelled like blue cheese -- the really funky moldy kind. Didn't taste like much right away.

The next day, the funk was gone from the nose, and instead I got anise, berries and a metallic scent. A sip revealed strawberry flavors and copper, almost like as if you had coins in your mouth. Yes, very weird.

Bought this wine for about $6 at Nob Hill. I really like Portuguese wines, they are some of the best values out there, and can really have some great depth. Whenever I go home on the east coast, I raid the wine stores there because you can find tons of good bottles for less than $10. Some of the package stores in my hometown have aisles and aisles of Portuguese wines, larger than the French or Italian sections. Some of these are made with the same grapes as port - Touriga Nacional, as well as Tinta Barroca and Tinta Roriz, and while you can taste the similarities, they are vastly different.

I haven't found as many Portuguese wines on the west coast, but I always buy them when I do.

2006 Altano Douro Reserva

This Portuguese wine is from Symington Family Estates, and I tried it at a tasting. I don't have extensive notes, but I wanted to talk about it 1) because of my constant urging for people to try Portuguese wines and 2) I found it to have a really interesting nose. I smelled cotton candy! It had a super sweet nose and it smelled just like cotton candy. In the mouth I got a lot of green veggies, as well as cherries.

The wine clocks in at 13.3 percent alcohol, and 3,000 cases were made. The winemakers were Charles Symington and Pedro Correia. I didn't get the price of this bottle, but I believe it sells for less than $20. For more info about the harvest (early rain, "violent hail" and heat waves) click here.

Pair from Portugal

My mom rounded up some Portuguese wines for me in New Bedford, MA before heading out west to visit for Christmas. New Bedford has a large Portuguese population, and many of the package stores (New England speak for liquor shops) have a plethora of non-port offerings from Portugal. I've said it before and I'll continue to push these wines because they usually represent great values.

The two we tasted were the 2000 Borges Reserva Douro ($11.49) and the Quinta do portal Mural Tinto ($8.99).

Borges: 13.5% alcohol. On the nose I found dry coffee grounds and nice berry notes. There's oak and vanilla on the attack, but not too much that it seems overdone. The wine quickly switches gears to a coffee-chocolate taste, and then the finish lingers on raspberry notes. Pleasant wine, great deal for the price. This wine reminded me of the much more expensive 2005 Benziger Tribute ($80) a biodynamic wine and Bordeaux blend.


Mural Tinto: Wasn't a big fan of this one. Alcohol-soaked cherries, gamey flavor, and red currants. Was wondering if I had a bad bottle, but I'm not inclined to try it again.

2007 Santa Julia Organica Torrontes

A few weeks ago I was looking for a last minute white to go with some Chinese food that I had just picked up from the restaurant to bring home. I wandered into Du Vin Fine Wines in Alameda, a great little shop that has more Greek and Portuguese wines than I've seen anywhere else. Both of these areas are getting increasing attention for the quality wines they produce, and They also have bottles from the U.S., France, Italy, Spain and South America.

I asked for a Gewurztraminer or something like it that could go well with a spicy Asian dish. He showed me one in the cooler, then picked out the 2007 Santa Julia Organica Torrontes, a blend from Mendoza, Argentina for about $10.99.

It is a very pale, yellow-tinged color, but has a huge nose of peaches leaning toward peach schnapps. In the mouth, the wine was much more grounded in minerality and slightly effervescent. This is a great value pick and an interesting wine for the price.

Jose Maria Da Fonseca Periquita 2004

When I first tasted this Portuguese wine I did a double take of the label because I could have sworn I just sipped a Cabernet Franc. It had a nice nose of green pepper, spice red berries and some coffee. In the mouth the mix was the same, with a bouquet of flowers on the finish that lingered for quite some time.

The actual breakdown of the grapes used to make this wine is 70% Castelao, 20% Trincadeira and 10% Aragonez.

On the second day of drinking it, the fruit came forward more and the bouquet bloomed. Really nice wine for the $10 I spent for it at Wine.com.

The producer, Jose Maria Da Fonseca, has been making this wine since 1850, and even exported it in the 1880s to Brazil. It sold 3.6 million bottles in 2000.

The technical sheet for this wine says the grapes are grown in the sandy and clay-lime soils of the Setubal Peninsula, and that it was aged for only four months in both new and used oak barrels. With a 13.4% alcohol level, this wine doesn't override food and is a good dinner bottle.

2008 Skouras White

I have a fondness for Greek wines, even if I only drink it very rarely. That's because I first started drinking wine on a regular basis when I was studying abroad in Greece during college.

I remember not liking red wine at first, because it was served warm, and I couldn't comprehend drinking a warm, or room temperature beverage with food (that's an American thing, apparently).

Still, the novelty of being able to buy alcohol at will (I was only 20) and the idea of drinking wine with dinner as what sophisticated people did, compelled me to try the various bottles on the shelves.

It wasn't long until I was exploring the wines of Greece, and loving every glass, from Xinomavro wines of Naoussa to Agiorgitiko wines of Nemea, as well as the sweet, dark dessert wine Mavrodaphne to the cheap, available in every bar, pine sol tasting Restina.

After I moved back to the US, I continued drinking wine on a regular basis, but shifted to the cheap wines I found here, which were mainly California plonk.

When I moved to California, and Oakland specifically, I came across a wine shop called Du Vin Fine Wines in Alameda that specialized in Greek wines (they have a good selection of Portuguese and Italian wines as well).

As I'm on an obscure Italian wine kick, I decided to see what they had last weekend. I was able to get a Lacrima di Morro, my current favorite red, and I asked him to suggest an off-beat white wine as well. The main one he wanted to sell me was out, but he suggested instead the 2008 Skouras White, a 60/40 blend of Roditis and Moscofilero, two native Greek grapes. As a bonus, the bottle was only $10.99.

Back home, I found this wine to have an earthy nose with a slight blue cheese mold tint to it. In the mouth, this dry wine had bright acidity and seemed to have a slight effervescence. Steely while cold, flavors of almonds and honey appeared as it warmed.

Overall, and interesting wine for $10.99, but nothing too exciting. I believe the wine the shop owner wanted me to try was a 100 percent Moscofilero, which the site All About Greek Wine describes as "A distinct aromatic grape from within the AOC region of Mantinia, in the Peloponnese, Moschofilero grapes have a gray colored skin and therefore produce a wine that is a blanc de gris. Its crisp character and beautiful floral aroma of roses and violets with hints of spices can be drunk as an aperitif or with food." Sounds good - I'll have to seek something like that out!