Indigenous wine on the sly: Fontanário de Pegões & Quinta do Côtto 2003

When I receive not one comment on a wine I review on this site, I'm bound to notice. I don't feel sorry for myself, I feel sorry for the wine.

I'm taking about a Portuguese wine I profiled three weeks ago. It's the only Weingolb post in a long time that hasn't received any comment and the first Weingolb review since January to go by uncommented.

Granted this Portuguese wine was not given a great review -- hard to spur on interest or conversion in that. But I think that it's the wine being Portuguese rather than it being less than stellar that explains why no one is intrigued enough to submit a response to it. I'm not sure what to do about this.

NO COMMENT?

I did a Portuguese week in February and March of 2006 when this blog was officially renamed Doutor Golb do vinho. I think that caused more of a scene on BlogShares than it did among my few readers.

Nevertheless, a year and a half later, I'm still pursuing my fondness of good-value indigenous regional wine of Portugal. More than 5% of my posts deal with the produce of Dão, Douro, Alentejo and Ribatejo et al. I believe that's a lot for the wine market I live in.

I do appreciate other sites like Catavino which focuses exclusively on Iberian wines. They're a great place to go when you know you're looking for a Portuguese bottle. But how do you introduce Portugal to a wine drinker who might not think to go looking for it? [Update: this issue has been somewhat immediately remedied by Catavino announcing their Portuguese focus for WBW 38, just moments after I posted this entry! Well played Catavino!]

For one thing, Dr. Vino's hosting of WBW #37 is a wonderful and eye-opening look at indigenous wines and I'm glad such a big theme event has come along to profile wines like Portugal's -- which is exactly what Dr. Vino's own write-up tackled.

In the end, I think my 5% blog rule is effective. I think in particular of how RougeAndBlanc, which features a majority of French and American wines, manages the same kind of thing when he integrates a healthy dose of wines like those from Portugal and most recently, the Balkans -- which is cool -- into his regular lineup of reviews.

It's almost like blogging about wine regions ripe for discovery on the sly -- perhaps that's the best way to influence the masses. Do it in between the Côte-Roties and international Cabernets.

SOME SLY WINES TO TRY

Fontanário de Pegões (tinto) Palmela 2003

A lighter and more inviting wine than you'd expect to dive into. It's a rare single-variety Castelão wine from a region which is named Palmela and whose reds I am not used to trying. It is a fruit-forward wine that is ready for instant enjoyment. No fretting over tannins. Almost too quaffable the way this wine flows and flows. But then Fontanário de Pegões gets its name from a fountain. I like a well-named wine.

Full descriptive information: www.cooppegoes.pt

SAQ product file: SAQ site is down on Monday morning! / Site web SAQ est en panne! Now available

TOO SLY BY HALF

Quinta do Côtto (tinto) Douro 2003

I was running into Kingston's LCBO with little time to waste. I picked up a couple Domaine du Ruault and then saw this bottle on the way out of the Vintages section. It was $21. I snapped it up. When I uncorked it, I knew I had made a hasty purchase. Though it possesses a lot more character, depth, body and tannic punch than the first wine, it is not any better balanced and actually has less personality. It may be a superior wine to the first (check the specs at www.quintadocotto.pt but it comes down to value and its $20+ sticker price is off.

Little did I know how prescient my notes would be. It turns out that Côtto is not a $20+ wine at all. It's available at the SAQ for $16.95, making it justly priced at $4 less than what I paid.

And that'll teach me for being such a sly wineblogger, thinking I'm entitled to reduced wine prices every time I pass through Ontario.