It’s summer time and, recent California weather aside, time to enjoy fresh summer meat, fish and produce. When you’re looking for a simple fresh white wine for a plate of oysters or a picnic at the park, consider the crisp white wines from northern and central Portugal. Trajarinho, an Alvarinho-based Vinho Verde, is perfect with shellfish and the slightly weightier, more aromatic Maria Gomes and Arinto-based wines from Luis Pato in Bairrada (a region in central Portugal about 90 minutes south of Porto) compliment roasted fish, grilled vegetables and chicken salad perfectly.

But Portuguese white wines aren’t just inexpensive summer sippers as Jon Bonné writes in the San Francisco Chronicle. There’s a mistaken impression that the world’s only age-worthy white wines are white Burgundy, German Rieslings, or one of a handful of Rioja producers but on our recent trip to Portugal we tasted oak and bottle-aged white wines which proved that there are elegant, world-class aged whites in Portugal as well.

So when your summer dining gets a little more serious, say herb-roasted chicken, baked salmon, or even pork tenderloin, consider the Luis Pato Vinhas Velhas Branco. The blend of Bical, Arinto (or Cerceal, as it’s known locally) and an Alvarinho-Cerceal hybrid called, conveniently enough, Sercialinho, is grown from Luis’ 45 year-old estate vineyards. Bairrada is only about twenty kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean, so it experiences significant marine influence with cool nights and lots of fog, ideal for its high-acid varietals. Also, the soil is primarily chalky and clay-based: Bairrada gets its name from “barro,” Portuguese for “clay” and ceramics is still a major industry in the region. These soil conditions are similar to those of the Chablis region of Burgundy and ideal for age-worthy white wines. Although the 2008 Vinhas Velhas Branco shows well right out of the bottle, we also tasted vintages going back to 1996 that showed great integration, mellower acid and a creamy richness on the palate. The white wines in Bairrada are typically aged in very large French oak barrels so they benefit from the rounded, mellowing characteristics of wood aging without much influence of butter and toast typical of white wines aged in smaller casks. When you combine the oak aging with the well-structured and high-acid grapes you create white wine that is ideal for cellaring. Purchase a case and hold back six bottles to drink over the next several years.

For a distinctly different white wine experience from the same region, try the aged white wines of Campolargo and Quinta das Bageiras. Campolargo’s Arinto, fermented with wild yeasts and aged for six months in used French oak barrels, has the concentrated oxidative nose of good white Rioja while still shining with acidity, even after five years in the bottle. Quinta das Bageiras’ Garrafeira Branco, a blend of Maria Gomes and Bical, is yet another different example of a fine white wine from Bairrada that becomes uniquely transcendent with age. Winemaker Mario Sergio Alves Nuno chooses to make this wine in the Garrafeira style, meaning that his white wines spend a minimum six months in barrel and six months in bottle and in practice spend much more time in bottle before release. We tasted white wines from Quinta das Bageiras going back to 2002 and the wine continued to evolve, trading acidity for round waxy fruit and smokey petrol-focused oxidation. Remember, oxidation isn’t a bad thing when it happens gradually in the right wines; the aging of white wine is essentially a process of slow, controlled oxidation.

Not to be outdone, the far north of Portugal also had white wines which, although showing great now, exhibited the signature characteristics of perpetually evolving age-worthy wine. Quinta de Soalheiro’s Alvarinho is delicious, with tight focused minerality and brisk acidity. Despite being only a few kilometers from the Spanish border, the soil on the Portuguese side of the Minho River is primarily granitic as opposed to the sandy soil north of the river in Spain’s Rias Baixas region. This means Portuguese Alvarinho exhibits more mineral and takes better to barrel, tank and bottle aging than its Spanish Albarino counterpart. We tasted vintages of Soalheiro Alvarinho going back to 1995 and the wine continued to improve as it aged. Unlike Bairrada where oak is heavily used, in Melgaço aging is done primarily in stainless steel with considerable time on the lees before being bottled, although about 10% of the Alvarinho in the Primeiras Vinhas “Oldest Vines” is aged in neutral oak barrels. The minimal oak aging meant that the evolution of the wine focused more on rounding out acidity and integrating flavors than on an increase in viscosity or creaminess. Despite being in the Vinho Verde region there’s nothing verde about Soalheiro’s premium offerings which, while expensive by Vinho Verde standards, are an excellent value when compared against the world’s top white wines. We were told these wines can age for twenty years or more, considering how fresh they tasted after fifteen, I believe it.

Portuguese white wines should continue to be your go-to for inexpensive poolside or picnic sippers, but there’s also serious elegance for only a few dollars more. Perfect for evening al fresco dining and with the structure and richness to compliment meals well into the fall and winter. I know some Vinhas Velhas and Garrafeiras Brancos are going to be taking the place of Chardonnays at Thanksgiving dinner this year. Saude!

by David Duman