The Douro Dares

“This is me,” said Margarida Serodio Borges emphatically, pushing a huge glass of her ruby-colored 1996 Vinho do Fojo “Reserva” across to me. We were tasting her first vintage over dinner in Oporto, which should have made the situation relaxing. But her unwavering gaze made me feel as if it were I who was being scrutinized, not the wine.

Only a decade ago, almost all the table wines from the Douro region of northern Portugal were rough and lacked depth. None of the region’s vintners would have risked the kind of take-it-or-leave-it statement that the dark-haired young woman made that evening. I need not have worried, though; the wine was as sophisticated as its maker. It was powerful, rich and tannic, with vanilla and smoke aromas from its new French oak barrels that in no way overshadowed the intense blackberry and plum fruit.

As difficult as these exciting new wines of the Douro may be to find, they are just as rewarding. Taste one and you’ll find it hard to understand how the region’s potential could have gone unrecognized for so long.

The explanation is simple, though: The grapes from these vineyards long went into the production of another great wine, the sweet red fortified wine called Port.

By the end of the 18th century, the valley of the Pinha~o, the small tributary of the Douro River where the Quinta do Fojo vineyard (“quinta” is Portuguese for estate) is situated, was widely recognized as one of the best sources for Port. From that point on, the only Pinha~o grapes that went into table wines were those from vineyards considered too inferior for Port production.

For Quinta do Fojo, the decisive moment came when Borges took over the winemaking in 1991, just 20 years old and with no training.

“From the beginning I wanted to make red wines,” she says, “but I wanted to do this without having to sell the wines quickly.”

All the estate’s grapes continued to be made into Port until 1996, at which point the winery was financially strong enough to be free from commercial pressures. They had also had time to find the ideal grapes, those from the oldest vines at Fojo--60 years old and planted on narrow ancient terraces.

If the standard bottling of 1996 Vinho do Fojo is not quite as dramatic as the Reserva, it is still very successful, packed with blackberry and plum fruit, the generous tannins supple enough to make it enjoyable already.

Despite a good start, things came apart in 1997--overall, an excellent year for the region--when problems developed with fermentation because of extreme heat at harvest. At Quinta do Fojo, as at a great many other small Douro estates, the winery equipment is very basic. The grapes for wine and Port ferment in large granite troughs called lagares that have no temperature control.

Therefore, 1998 is Fojo’s next red wine vintage. Throughout the Douro, generally ’98 is not as good a vintage as ’97 was, but the ’98 Fojo wines I’ve tasted from the barrel had deep color and plenty of richness, and slightly more polish than the 1996s.

Domingos Alves de Sousa waited even longer than Borges to make his first wines. The former civil engineer took over his family’s wine estates in 1978 and didn’t bottle the first vintage under his own label until 1991. In intervening years, he studied wine in Bordeaux and Portugal and constructed a modern winery at his Quinta da Gaivosa property, near the western edge of the Douro vine-growing region.

In his tweed jacket and open-necked shirt, de Sousa may look like a civil engineer on his day off, but he is making some of the most polished wines in the region. The silky texture and succulence of the rich blackberry and black currant flavors make the 1995 stand out. It is already delicious, while the 1997--which promises to be even better--needs at least another year of bottle age to give its best. The spicy and chocolate aromas of both wines are reminiscent of top-quality Port.

His three varietal wines from the Quintado Vale da Raposa are less concentrated in flavor and silky in texture than the Gaivosa wines, but they give clear impressions of some of the region’s most important red varietals. The 1997 Tinto Ca~o is rather light with modest tannins but has a delightful aroma of violets, while the 1997 Touriga Nacional is powerful and firm with a pronounced black currant character. The 1997 Tinto Roriz (the grape is known in Spain as Tempranillo) is a complete contrast, full and fleshy with generous but ripe tannins and plummy flavor.

Some Douro table wines are rather hard, because ambitious winemakers are extracting too much tannin from the grapes in their pursuit of power and imposing flavor. One winemaker who has mastered the art of vinifying wines packed with tannin that are still balanced is Joa~o Nicolau de Almeida of the Port house Ramos Pinto. His Duas Quintas Reserva--so named because the grapes come from two quintas, dos Bom-Ares and Ervamoira--is almost as black as young vintage Port and has the tannins to match. However, there is nothing coarse or overbearing about these wines.

Almeida works out of a laboratory with a panoramic view over the roofs of Oporto. During the 1970s, he published ground-breaking research into the merits and weaknesses of the main Port grapes. Later he pioneered the planting of steep vineyards with the rows of vines running directly up the slopes, rather than following the contour lines of hillsides as is traditional in the Douro Valley.

“A quality wine should have maturity and equilibrium, but today everybody is in a hurry,” he explained as he poured out five different vintages of Duas Quintas “Reserva,” “so you must excuse that the ’97 and ’95 vintages are too young to drink and the ’94 is just beginning to show well.”

He was right too, for in the 1991 and ’92 vintages, you could see how time had mellowed their youthful firmness and developed their spicy aromas. However, given some further aging, the blockbuster 1997 and nearly equal 1994 will be much better. What makes them stand out is not only concentration of flavor, but less assertive tannins.

“When I started making table wines 10 years ago, I was used to making Port and had to search for a new style,” he explained. “With the 1994 I found a good reference point.”

He is not the only one delighted with the 1997 reds. Just a few streets away at the Niepoort cellars, Port maker Dirk van der Niepoort has a collection of 1997 red table wines from his own vineyards and from Quinta do Passadouro, a property he manages for the Belgian owners. Nowhere is Douro power wrapped in a silkier package.

“I’m looking to get the same combination of concentration and subtlety that you get in great red Burgundies,” he said. “It is no problem getting good Douro vineyards to give big wines, but fragrance and delicacy are much more difficult to achieve here.”

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Where to Find Them

Table wines from the Douro are hard to find in Los Angeles, but here are some sources:

* Duas Quintas: Red Carpet, 400 E. Glenoaks Blvd., Glendale, (800) 339-0609; Topline Wine & Spirits, 4718 San Fernando Road, Glendale (818) 500-9670; Victor’s Liquor, 1915 N. Bronson Ave., Hollywood, (323) 464-0275; Mel and Rose Wine & Spirits, 8344 Melrose Ave., L.A., (323) 655-5557; or ask your local store to order it from the distributor, Wine Warehouse (323) 724-1700.

* Quinta do Passodouro: Hi-Time Wine Cellars, 250 Ogle St., Costa Mesa, (949) 650-8463; Woodland Hills Wine Co., 22622 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, (818) 222-1111; or ask your local store to order it from the distributor, Martine’s Wines (415) 883-0400.

* Quinta da Gaivosa and Quintado Vale da Raposa: Ask your local store to order it from the distributor, Aidil Wines & Liquors (732) 381-0044.