The grapes of Portugal
How Portuguese cultivars are being translated in California terroirs
I am posting the following adaptation of a chapter in my Lodi! The Definitive Guide book (KitchenCincoPress, 2022) entitled “The Portuguese Grape King” because of the recent surge of interest in Portuguese wine grapes. This snippet focuses on the labors of Ron Silva, whose Silvaspoons Vineyards in the Alta Mesa appellation of Lodi is the leading source of Portuguese grapes in America.
Silva, who is of proud Portuguese heritage, originally planted his grapes for the production of Port. Because, as it were, sweet fortified wines are no longer the fashion in the U.S. market—and haven’t been since the late 1960s—most of Silva’s plantings end up as dry table wines, usually as varietals, which is good from the perspective that at least we get a good idea of the sensory qualities of individual grapes. Something we can put our finger on and talk about.
Being far and between, varietal bottlings of Portuguese grapes end up occupying the “miscellaneous” categories of California wine judgings. Therefore you can say that wines with “Silvaspoons Vineyard” label designations have probably been the most awarded wines (almost always golds) in competitions such as California State Fair over the past 15 or so years. This is not to suggest they are the greatest wines in the world, or even in California, but they certainly are interesting!
In any case, the story of California’s Portuguese grape king…
Zone of the Verdelho
At a 2010 public tasting in San Francisco, Master Sommelier Andrea Immer Robinson could not help but stop to ponder a 2009 Alta Mesa Verdelho from Silvaspoons Vineyards, extolling the dry white wine’s “silky dryness,” “perky tartness” and unblemished fragrances—think lime, lemon verbena and white peach skin—while also making note of flavors suggesting “marzipan and almonds in the finish as you exhale,” adding that “it makes me crave a Barcelona-style spinach salad, laden with pine nuts and raisins.”
Granted, over the first two decades of the 2000s Verdelho has not caught on with the general public to the extent of other emerging “alternative” white varietals, such as Albariño, or even Vermentino or Grenache Blanc. But the grape has remained emblematic of the labors of Silvaspoons Vineyards owner/grower Ron Silva, a third-generation California grower of Portuguese descent.
Standing among his rows of vines under an intense summer sun, Mr. Silva once explained to me, “When you look all around you can clearly see why so many Portuguese came to California, even those who were working and living in Hawai’i first [as workers in the sugar cane fields]. The California coast looks just like the coast of Portugal. And when you go a little further inland, into the Sacramento or San Joaquin Valley, the climate is just like the interior of Portugal. It’s a warm, dry Port climate, perfect for Portuguese grapes.”
The facts and figures back up the first-hand experience of Silva’s family. Since the 1840s, California has been home to the largest population of Portuguese emigrants in the United States. According to the most recent figures, there are over 346,000 Portuguese-Americans living in the coastal areas, from the Sacramento Valley to the Bay Area, Central Valley and San Diego.
Adds Silva, who has traveled back and forth between California and his ancestral home in the Azores several times, “I started growing Portuguese grapes because of my Portuguese heritage. But I wouldn’t have done it if this area [the Alta Mesa AVA] didn’t also remind me of Portugal. You look at the soil, the weather and temperatures, and you would think you were in Portugal, except for the lack of tile roof houses you see all over Portugal.
Regarding Verdelho, Silva says, “I was inspired to plant this white wine grape after visiting Ilha do Pico [Pico Island] in the Portuguese Azores in 1997. I was in Pico to see where my grandfather was born and came across a sign that said ‘Zona do Verdelho.’ Zone of the Verdelho. There I found plantings of an indigenous clone of the Verdelho grape, planted in fields surrounded by a rat’s maze of black volcanic walls, built everywhere on the island to protect the vines and fig trees from the winds whipping from the Atlantic.”
Somehow, adds Silva, “Cuttings of Verdelho ended up in my suitcase.” Immediately enthralled by the quality of Silva’s plantings, Bokisch Vineyards’ Markus Bokisch propagated the Pico selection in his own vineyard, thereby helping to create a modest buzz about the varietal in the early 2000s among a few specialty wineries. Today there is a certified virus-free Verdelho Clone 06 now registered with U.C. Davis’ Foundation Plant Services, donated by Bokisch in 2001, originating from those cuttings that accidentally fell into Silva’s suitcase back in 1997.
In the early 2000s Silva began expanding his vineyard operations in Lodi’s Alta Mesa AVA, located just east of Highway 99 between Galt and Elk Grove, a good 20 miles north of urban Lodi. “It was quite a chore,” says Silva, “because there are only about 27 inches of loose, gravelly topsoil in Alta Mesa, and after that you hit about 9 inches of hard packed sandstone. But beneath that was some beautiful, blonde-colored loamy soil that hadn’t seen the light of day in about a million years, along with lots of extremely pure groundwater. We had to rip through the sandstone layer 7 feet down to get to it. But just look at the vines and you can see why it was worth the trouble. They’re growing beautifully and have produced some outrageously good fruit!”
Like many of Lodi’s larger growers, Silva may dote on Portuguese cultivars close to his heart, but he also grows all the high-demand varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Pinot gris, and a half-dozen more (including Mencía, Tannat, Cinsaut and Torrontés)—all flourishing in the Alta Mesa-Lodi AVA.
Focus on the black-skinned grapes of Port
Like thousands of other Americans of Portuguese descent, Ron Silva has dairyman roots, and he still ranches young cattle for the beef market. Portuguese-Americans own about 46% of the dairies in California, producing more than half of the state’s milk.
But today Mr. Silva is also the country’s largest grower of black-skinned Portuguese grapes, particularly the varieties that go into the production of the famous sweet, fortified reds known as Port, grown in Portugal’s Douro Valley.
When he first began making the transition from dairy to grapes, Mr. Silva had the benefit of something of a viticultural mentor in the late Tim Spencer, founder and original owner/winemaker of Lodi’s St. Amant Winery, which is now operated by his son Stuart Spencer. Tim Spencer originally became interested in Portuguese grapes in the 1970s. The younger Spencer still often repeats, “My father used to say, ‘If all wine could be Port, it would.’”
There is, for the record, a total of 64 different grapes actually permitted in Portugal’s Douro Valley to produce Port, but the six most commonly used grapes are Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Cão and Tinta Amarela. Says Mr. Silva:
I got my first “recipe” for Port blending from Tim Spencer. My property on Mingo Road was cleared and leveled in 1998, and in 2000 I planted 32 acres of these grapes, in rows of 192 plants: Touriga Nacional [22 rows], Tinta Roriz [17 rows], Touriga Franca [8 rows], Tinta Cão [8 rows], Alvarelhão [8 rows] and Souzão [4 rows].
Then a little later, on our home ranch on Arno Road, I added five rows of Trincadeira Preta [a.k.a., Tinta Amarela], another important grape in Port production, from cuttings I got from an E. & J. Gallo block.
My original dream was to see California wineries taking percentages of all seven grapes to produce authentic Port-style wine. It’s been done on occasion, but as it turned out, most of the grapes have been going to various wineries to produce varietal red wines rather than Port. Jeff Runquist in Amador County, for instance, has made numerous award-winning wines from Alvarelhão, Souzão, and Touriga Nacional. Ficklin Vineyards and Quady Winery down south [in Madera] use some of the grapes for their Port-style wines. And now Markus Niggli [Lodi’s Markus Wine Co.] is using Touriga Nacional as the major component in one of his blends.
For a short time (until 2010), Silva utilized his own grapes to produce a Port-style wine under his Alta Mesa Vineyards label. He also produced an Alta Mesa label Verdelho. They were beautifully crafted wines. Thus, Silva is as adept at speaking about these varieties from a sensory perspective as he is as a grape grower.
Cobbled together from several conversations with Mr. Silva, mixed with a few remarks of my own, here is a description of the black-skinned Port grapes cultivated in Silvaspoons Vineyards.
Touriga Nacional
Touriga Nacional is the most important Port grape of all in terms of sheer quality. While the Touriga Nacional grape grows a vigorous canopy, it is a relatively low yielding vine, producing elongated, medium-weight clusters of small-ish, dark bluish-black-colored berries, high in tannin/phenolic content and very good acidity. The intense, fairly floral fruit qualities of the wine can have raspberry/cassis or blackcurrant fruit qualities, with suggestions of licorice and, often, bergamot orange or Earl Grey tea-like scents. But the overriding characteristic that the grape contributes to both Ports and blended table reds in both Portugal and the U.S. is a sinewy, rippling tannin muscle, meatiness and texturing.
Touriga Franca (a.k.a., Touriga Francesa)
While technically known as Franca in Portugal, Silva calls this grape “Francesa.” It is the most widely planted black-skinned grape in the Douro Valley, thriving in the hot, dry climate of this river valley region. Yields are vigorous and dependable, but cluster sizes are always small and compact, yielding less concentrated fruit and phenolic qualities than its counterpart, Touriga Nacional. (Note: Francesa has been identified as a cross of Mourisco tinto and Touriga Nacional). Yet red wines from Francesca can still be robust and richly colored, with floral, often violet-like notes on top of black fruit qualities. Blended with Touriga Nacional, it lends finesse, even a degree of delicacy, in terms of structure and feel. In California, Silvaspoons-grown Francesca is blended with Touriga Nacional by wineries like Jeff Runquest and Fenestra to produce table reds called, simply, Touriga.
Tinta Cão
This rounded, winged, pyramid-shaped, small-to-medium-weight grape is said to have been cultivated in the Douro Valley since the 1500s, but in very small quantities due to its low-yielding as well as late-ripening habits. The thick-skinned clusters, however, are valued for their resistance to disease pressure and sunburn, and can contribute aggressive, often astringent, tannin structure to both Port and table red blends. According to Silva, Tinta Cão has a tart cherry character of its own when allowed to be expressed as a stand-alone variety.
Tinta Amarela (a.k.a., Trincadeira Preta)
Unlike Tinta Cão, Tinta Amarela is susceptible to bunch rot, but it is valued for the zesty acidity and slightly floral raspberry fruit and mildy herby/peppery spice qualities it can contribute as a blending component, even at moderate sugar/alcohol levels.
Tinta Roriz (a.k.a., Tempranillo, Aragonês, Ull de Libre or Tinta del Pais)
Tinta Roriz—also called Aragonês in Portugal—is known by more than a dozen synonyms in Spain, although primarily as Tempranillo, derived from the Spanish word temprano, for “early.” In fact, the grape’s early ripening trait is one of the reasons it is highly favored in the Iberian Peninsula, with some 88% of the world’s Tempranillo grown in Spain and another 8% in Portugal. The cultivar thrives in Lodi’s Alta Mesa AVA for the same reasons it thrives in Portugal and Spain: it loves a hot, dry climate.
It is also a favorite because cluster weights are fairly generous, producing large, round, fairly thick-skinned berries of moderate color yet savory flavors. They express a range of fruit—plum, cherry/strawberry, sometimes blackberry—a red meat, or “animal,” quality and suggestions of masculine notes like leather and tobacco, more often than not couched in firm yet rounded tannin/phenolic structuring particularly amenable to barrel aging (almost in the same way that Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese love oak). This explains its popular use as a blending component in both the Port and table red wines of Portugal.
Alvarelhão
While not considered a primary grape in the Douro Valley, Alvarelhão has thrived in Lodi’s Alta Mesa AVA. Its cylindrical, medium-sized clusters and berries produce varietal reds of moderate tannin, a full body, and generous aromas and flavors suggesting Bing cherry and often boysenberry or strawberry jam, plus a slightly pepperminty/leafy green herbiness. In the recent past, Forlorn Hope, Dan Morgan’s Lee Family Farm and Livermore Valley’s Fenestra Winery have produced intense, supple varietal Alvarelhãos from Silva’s vineyard on Mingo Road.
Souzão
Silva describes red wines fashioned from Souzão’s round, compact, small-ish clusters as a “secret weapon” when used as a blending grape because of its vibrant, high acid, deep color, fairly sturdy tannin and often raisiny-rich fruit, akin to strawberry glazed with caramelized brown sugar, qualities found in varietal bottlings by producers like Jeff Runquist, as well as in the Paul Masson “Rare Souzão Ports” of yesteryear. However, Silva allows that this has never been an important grape in the Douro Valley because of the rustic, sometimes coarse, quality of the wine. Says Silva, “Souzão can be very useful because it boosts the color and bumps up the flavor of other varieties”—a trick, in fact, that Lodi’s Ripken Vineyards has craftily employed to zip up Pinot Noir and other varietal bottlings, utilizing their own plantings of Souzão.
An underrated Portuguese white cultivar
Alvarinho
There are three clonal selections listed by U.C. Davis’ Foundation Plant Services as Alvarinho, the Portuguese variant of Albariño; one of which was selected and planted by Silva in 2011.
Is there a difference between Alvarinho and Albariño? If there is, the sensory distinctions are difficult to discern based upon comparisons of bottlings from Rías Baixas and Vinho Verde because of the wide range of winemaking and brand-related styles now coming out of those regions. Based upon our tastings of California bottlings over the past 10 years, Alvarinho bottlings sourced from Silvaspoons have consistently produced ultra-bright, super-citrusy and palate-slaking white wines suggesting lemon and lime mixed with drippy nectarine. The fresh qualities in the nose pop up on the palate, yet come across as light, airy, crisp and refreshing, even when hitting 13.5% ABV.
If anything, white wines made from Spanish Albariño plant material grown in the Lodi appellation are not as singularly lemon/lime-like in their focus as what you find in Silvaspoons-grown Alvarinho. Rather, they run the entire gamut of the cultivar’s sensory profile, most likely as much because of variations of terroir (either the sandy loam of most of Lodi or the rich, peaty alluvium of the California Delta, both contrasting with the shallower sandy clay loam found in the Alta Mesa AVA where Silvaspoons is located) as sensory qualities related to clonal variations.
For the record, the specific sensory profiles found in Lodi grown whites made from the Spanish Albariño cultivar:
Citrus (from orange to lemon)
Stone fruit (from apricot to peach)
Crisp fruit (apples and pear)
Tropical fruit (pineapple or guava)
Flowers (from “wild” to tropical)
Occasional minerality (especially in lower alcohol/higher acid bottlings) or sea-like brininess.
Herb-like floral notes such as lavender
Notably, though, the Silvaspoons Alvarinho growth has produced a number of wines finishing at the top of Albariño categories at California State Fair as well as at small regional judgings such as Calaveras County Fair (including a “Best of Show” at the 2015 California State Fair). Wine professionals seem to like it, a lot. Accordingly, this is a clonal variant of some significance.
Randy: you did it again. By mentioning " Paul Masson Rare Souza Port" that opened my memory floodgate of this wine. In the 1970s, I believe I sold more of this wine in Southern California than any other account. I took home a bottle one night because the label was interesting and they used that grape variety. I poured a glass after dinner and put the tea
Cork back in and a short time later, the cork popped out. So I left the bottle open that night and the next evening I tasted again and the true varietal character came through. The first night the smell and taste reminded me of prune juice, but had had gone away in 24 hours turning it into a delicious dessert, wine
Eric Awes
Thank you, Pat! A good start for varietal reds from Portuguese grapes is Jeff Runquist in Amador County.