Good Wine Makes a World of Difference
The next best thing to physically being in Portugal is discovering the wines of Portugal. Lucky me; I was able to attend a grand tasting the other day at the Coast Plaza hotel in Vancouver. Always a pleasure to discover unfamiliar and delicious tasting wines and meet nice new people.
I’ve tried wines from Portugal before but most of the ones at the “Wines of Portugal” tasting are not yet available for purchase in Canada (or elsewhere in North America for that matter).
I didn’t realize their scope of native grape varieties are so plentiful – 250 different kinds to be exact!
The prized and distinct grapes are considered a national treasure and have been savoured by generations of Portuguese wine lovers. Wine drinkers elsewhere in the world will discover fresh new flavours when they sample.
Here are some fun facts:
Portugal is home of the first Demarcated and Regulated wine region in the world – The Douro Valley, now a Unesco World Heritage site.
The Portuguese were the first to bring European wines to the Americas and to Asia.
Portugal has the highest density of native grape varieties in the world.
*Jancis Robinson, in a 13 year tasting, ranked Portuguese red wines the highest.
*(British wine critic, journalist and wine writer. Jancis currently writes a weekly column for the Financial Times, and writes for her website JancisRobinson.com, updated daily. She also provides advice for the wine cellar of Queen Elizabeth II).
Portugal was elected for the 3rd consecutive year as “Best Destination in the World” by the World Travel Awards and in total won 39 awards.
The wine region of Lisbon was considered by Wine Enthusiast one of the “10 Best Wine Travel Destinations 2019.”
Forbes magazine elected the best wines of 2019 and in its list there are 3 Portuguese wines in the first 12 places.
And of course there’s the PORT:
It’s important to not drink too much on an empty stomach.
Don’t ask me how I know this
Luckily the room had plenty of tasty appies to choose from.
For wine enthusiasts this was an excellent event.
DISCOVER:
https://winesofportugal.com/en/portuguese-wines/wine-styles/
Photos: d. king
Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION. 
Not sure if you got my comment about the current lack of availablity of Portuguese wines at BC liquor stores in the Fraser Valley. Hoping that this wine show is the beginning of better communication with our goverment stores and the products they offer.
I sure hope so. At least that’s the plan. It’s not only the Fraser Valley that lacks availability, it’s all of B.C.
These winemakers came all the way to Vancouver from Portugal to showcase many outstanding wines that we don’t get to experience here. Most are looking for distributors. It’s similar to getting Canadian wines into California which is a lot closer. Should be easy enough, but it’s not. A lot of red tape. I found some of the wine facts quite interesting and I hope to see some of the labels in our BC liquor (and even private stores) soon.