It’s not all about Mateus Rosé

Olly Smith —

Live, Mail on Sunday

It’s not all about Mateus Rosé—

Portugal, as regular readers will know, is a place that captivates me with its wine.

I’ve written about its wines here before, extolling the characterful local grape varieties, with diverse flavours and thrilling regional variety.

And I was chuffed recently to win the journalism prize at the Wines of Portugal Awards 2012, which was presented to me by Dr João de Vallera, the Portuguese Ambassador.

But something profound has changed for me in the past few weeks.

I’ve been tasting a wealth of Portuguese vinos that are knocking me sideways with their quality – and almost more interesting is their cracking value for money.

At a tasting of the wines of the importer Raymond Reynolds – winesfromportugal.com – my tasting notes had begun to bulge with an extraordinary number of wines that were scoring highly indeed, head and shoulders above many other southern European bottles at the same prices.