Portugal

Portugal as a wine country distinguishes itself by mainly producing wines from its own grape varieties. The Portuguese wines are also developing well and quickly, so it is certainly interesting for wine lovers to try some different wines from this beautiful country. When Portugal joined the EU in 1986, the quality of Portuguese wines immediately increased enormously.

It was then stimulated to start vineyards and produce wine. As a result, the large umbrella wine producers were sidelined and many smaller wine producers started to work for themselves.

Today, therefore, more than a thousand winemakers can be found in Portugal. The Douro wine region is one of the examples of such a wine region that has undergone tremendous development since accession to the EU. In the past, mainly a sweet Port was produced here, but gradually the wineries in this region have kept up with the times and are increasingly experimenting with different grapes. The result of this is that they now also produce a lot of dry quality wines in this region. A not so well known wine region in Portugal is the wine region Beiras. In this region, a lot of red Portuguese wines are produced on a steep slope. These wines can often be stored for decades and even then they do not lose their taste. A grape variety that is widely used in this region is the Baga grape. This grape is powerful and has strong acids that can be softened by mixing the grapes with other types of grapes. All in all, Portuguese wine producers often use the native grape varieties . This is not difficult since there are about 500 different grape varieties in Portugal. Partly because of this, the winemakers can make their own unique wine and do not have to compete with other wine countries, such as Chile.