The Problem with being a Retailer on an Importer/Press Trip

by Rob Bralow, Wine Post Editor

Do not get me wrong, I am having a great time. But almost all of the wines I am tasting will require at least 3 months before they get into the US, and that only if one of the importers on the trip with me decided they want to start the process of bringing the wines in TOMORROW.

I am tasting lots of great wines and one of the wineries I visited that has truly impressed me is Uniao Comercial de Biera. They have a ton of great brands, all made by a female winemaker Christina, at least I am pretty sure that is her name. And from what I have been hearing, they are really inexpensive, although what that means when they get to the US, I am not sure. The prices I am getting are ex-cellars prices in Euros.

Another great thing is I am tasting varieties that are brand new to me, so I have little to no expectations or pre-conceptions. Grapes like Encruzado and Alfrocheiro are very interesting and make some good wines in the hands of the right people. I am sure I am well over the 100 make in terms of the different grapes I have tasted and I sort of wonder how close I am to 200, but I do not keep track. It is just great to taste new wines.

Need to run on to my next round of tastings, but later in the week I am sure I will be writing more about these wines.

A surprise tryp to Portugal

by Rob Bralow, Wine Post Editor

I was extremely surprised when I received an e-mail inviting me to a "tryp" to Portugal. At first I thought it must be spam, but decided it was worth another look.

We would like to invite you on a trip to Portugal.

I had to read that line two or three times to make sure my eyes were ok. I think showed it to my fiancée (oh did I mention that yet?) and she laughed at the spelling and then got excited. "You are going to Portugal? Without me?!"

And now it is several weeks later and here I am, at the Yeatman Hotel in Oporto.

I may do this in several different ways, depending on time allowance and my level of inebriation. I may do a day-by-day recap every time I get back to my hotel room, or I might save it all up for one longer write-up later. All I know is, here I am, and I am really looking forward to traveling along the Douro river valley and tasting some amazing Portuguese wines. 

If you have any questions you would like me to ask on this trip, let me know. I will be visiting many wineries and tasting whites, reds, and ports, I am sure. I do not know if I will ever have another chance to be so close to Portugal's winemakers, so ask up! And I'll report back what I find out.

It's like the lamp post from Narnia...

Sweet Tooth Twosome: Wine Blogging Wednesday #66

By Rob Bralow, Wine Post Editor


Today is Wine Blogging Wednesday and Jennifer The Domestic Goddess is our host for this month. She wanted us to think about our after dinner pairings and write about them. I love sweet things. Chocolate for sure, but there is a dessert that I have most often that I cannot get enough of. I have had this addiction since it was forced on me by my parents to keep me happy (or maybe they were just feeding their own addictions).


I of course am talking about the Oreo Cookie.


It is a delectable, delicious, and versatile cookie. It most often loves to be dunked in milk, but it can also be crumbled on top of pudding, ice cream, cake, pie, pizza, hot dogs, grilled chicken, and steak. At least... I think it would be good on those last couple.


I picked another sweet and delicious liquid to imbibe with my cookies for this post. I chose the NV DR Tawny Port. This Port was very good. On the nose there were beautiful notes of chocolate, raison, and almond, all of which were confirmed when I put it in my mouth. The raison turned into dried cherry and it was smooth with a wonderful length so that the mingling of Oreo and Port kept me happy. I also liked that the bottle's label looked somewhat like an Oreo.

What do you like your Oreo's with?

ViniPortugal and the European Wine Blogging Conference

On the eve of flying out to the U.S. Wine Blogging Conference in Santa Rosa, I attended an event at Aldea, a restaurant at 17th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, hosted by ViniPortugal. The event was specifically for wine bloggers to come and taste Portuguese wines. They got most of the right people there, and the event was well done. The food was delicious, my favorite being an excellent duck and rice dish. I fully expect there to be a review at StrumErika.com of all of the dishes that were served.

This event was also hosted by CataVino. Ryan and Gabriella Opaz have teamed up with ViniPortugal to bring wine bloggers to the forefront of the minds of wineries and regional wine programs. Really is bloggers are not part of the program by now, then some people need to wake up. Ryan and Gabriella are the organizers of the European Wine Blogging Conference, taking place in Lisbon in October (Full disclosure: this blog post puts me in the drawing to be sponsored by ViniPortugal to attend that event. Winners are announced on September 1st).

This past weekend was my first Wine Blogging Conference, so I do not really know what to expect. My assumption was that this will be wine blogging boot camp, with suggestions of how to be a better blogger, a better wine taster, a better… whatever. It was a lot of fun, I met a lot of great people, and I confirmed a lot of what I thought about the wine industries view of bloggers.

Going back to ViniPortugal, what I liked most about the event at Aldea was that there were a reasonable number of wines. Too often regional wine campaigns are forced into showing a slew of wines to please their winery members. The politics involved are understandable and exhausting. This event showed only fifteen wines, which allowed me to browse them easily, taste all of them, and even go back to the ones I liked most. The format was very informal: There were four or five tables, each with about two to four wines, and a food that was suggested to pair well with the wine. In most cases I think they got the pairing right.

My favorite wine of the evening was the Esporão Red 2006 from Herdade do Esporão. The wine is a blend of Aragonês, Trincadeira, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Alicante Bouschet. Of all of those grapes I have seen two before, so this is a learning experience for me. The wine comes from the region of Alentejo, which is a DOC (Denominação de Origem Controlada). Alentejo is in southern Portugal and is within the larger wine region of Alentejano. This wine for me was silky and sexy. There was a rich freshness to the blackberries and blueberries that streamed out of this wine. Very yummy!

I look forward to trying more Portuguese wines as well as learning more about the regions. I think Portugal has a lot of potential to grow in the United States. The wine is good, the region has been making wine for a long time, and there is not an abundance of commercial promotion in the U.S. Really one of the only aspects that might hold them back are the wine region names and the names of the grapes. We English speakers are lazy and mainly interested in things we can pronounce. Merlot, Cabernet, Chardonnay. Much easier to get our lips around than Trincadeira.

For more information on Portuguese wines, visit them at http://www.viniportugal.pt/. For more on the European Bloggers' Conference, visit http://winebloggersconference.org/europe/.