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Do Portugal's Wine Cellars Hide Rivals to Volnay and Margaux?
May 31 (Bloomberg) -- Conventional investment wisdom never has been kind to Portuguese wines.

``Cheap drink,'' sighs Portuguese wine master Leonel Duarte, the 46-year-old manager of Napoleao, a Lisbon wine store that specializes in bulk shipments of local vintages. ``Most of our wine is used for blending purposes or on package-holiday tourists. Our legacy was lost.''

And still to be found. Even today, amid a vibrant market in Old and New World vintages of all ages and prices, wine analyst Robert M. Parker Jr. pays negligible attention to any Portuguese wine that isn't labeled Port in ``Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide,'' the Moody's of investment wines.

Portuguese confidence in their wines hardly runs so high, giving local winemakers little reason to compete against the big- ticket labels from France, Spain and the U.S.

``It's bad wine by any comparison,'' says Richard Canico, the 26-year-old concierge at Palacio Belmonte, a 15th-century Lisbon castle converted into a luxury residence that serves only bitter cherry liqueurs and rich Ports in its azulejo-tiled drinking chamber. Canico should know. He grew up making Piriquita wines with his family in the Almeirim region.

``Investment wines?'' Canico says, laughing. ``I don't think so.''

It's time to pull the cork on the conventional wisdom. Although the wines of Portugal might not be prepared to officially compete against the big French labels, the wide and mostly unknown range of local vintages provides the skilled investor with ample opportunity to taste-test the nascent futures market in local wines.

Bubbles From 1874

An informal series of tasting sessions pitted a troika of Duarte's Portuguese investment picks against an overwhelming livery of storied European goliaths from the private cellar of Don and Petie Kladstrup. They are the husband-and-wife authors of ``Wine and War'' and ``Champagne,'' both books on the subject of how France's vineyards survived the onslaught of two world wars.

Representing Germany over dinner at the Kladstrups' home in Normandy was a magnum of 1874 Pennrich Deutscher Sekt sparkling wine, the favored tipple of Kaiser Wilhelm II and, at the time, as drinkable and popular as its cross-border cousin Champagne.

Laced with hints of honey, the Pennrich was a refreshing dessert wine that remarkably retained its effervescence 132 years after being set to bottle.

On the Burgundy side of the table was a lively and rich 1929 Gevrey-Chambertin from Domaine Martinet Piat that by all accounts should have died in 1949. The 1934 Volnay Champans from Domaine Marquis Jacques d'Angerville likely passed away when the Allies invaded Normandy, but the spicy 1942 Hospices du Beaune Clos du Marechal Petain Cote de Beaune remained an aromatic gem with a whiff of smooth terroir from the cellars of Patriarche & Fils.

Mildew, Bubble Gum

The ``caves'' of Bordeaux offered up a complex 1929 Chateau Laburthe-Brivazuc Pessac that opened with a fog of mildew, evaporating with the flavor of old red fruit and bubble gum. The 1933 Haut Brion, dry and as refreshing as dust, was outclassed by the still-explosive bouquet and berry-fused taste of an elderly 1940 Chateau Rauzan Gassies Margaux and the muscular body of a well-aged 1945 St. Estephe from Chateau Montrose.

According to Claude Chapuis, professor of economics at the Burgundy School of Business in Dijon, the original retail price tag on the now ``priceless'' French and German wines would not have exceeded 5 euros ($6.37) in today's money.

``These wines were a bargain,'' says Chapuis, whose family for generations has nurtured pinot-noir grapes into Corton and Aloxe-Corton wines at Domaine Chapuis in Burgundy. ``A real investment wine must be reasonably priced when first purchased and drinkable when served.''

Prospecting Portugal's cellars for wines that meet Chapuis's investment criteria is a task that would daunt Bacchus. Don't expect fast gains in this buy-and-hold market.

Mystique

Duarte figures finding Portuguese vintages capable of competition against the great (and lousy) French investment wines of today or yesteryear is a fool's task.

``Much of a wine's price and its perceived taste in the public is based on mystique, and we don't have mystique,'' Duarte says, echoing one of the trade's great myths and selecting a 1999 Quinta Do Vale Meao, a red from the Douro produced by Olazabal & Sons. In 1999, the wine retailed for 59 euros. Production was limited to 18,000 bottles. Current price: 123 euros.

The Quinta is not worth the plunge when poured against similarly priced recent French investment vintages, such as a 1999 Grand Cru Chateau de la Tour Clos-Vougeot ``vielles vignes'' from Labert & Dechelette.

``Our winemakers are still learning about marketing,'' is Duarte's take on Quinta's high price. ``We're not there yet.'' Neither is Duarte's second choice, a 1998 Vinha Maria Teresa, overpriced at 125 euros a bottle. With only 2,500 bottles produced, this Douro in theory should interest investors.

It doesn't. Like the Quinta, the Maria Teresa has no bouquet and batters the palate with a rich wave of terroir, berries and fruit blossoms, then vanishes with the memory of bottled water.

Ramisco Grapes

Duarte's final selection, a Colares Chitas, doesn't come with a label that engenders confidence: a gold medal from a 1960 wine tasting in Yugoslavia. Extracted from the ramisco grapes grown in Portuguese coastline beach sand, the 1979 Colares Chitas from the adega of Antonio Bernardino Paulo da Silva is a wine with a taste as long and as delicious as the maker's name, a retail bargain at 70 euros and a production of 24,500 bottles.

The Colares Chitas is what an investment wine is all about. More recent vintages sell for about 15 euros a bottle. Duarte says great years for Colares Chitas include 1983, 1991 and 1992. Each warming sip lingers softly for some 20 minutes, an extraordinary length of time.

Perfume of Madeira

The 1979 vintage, which initially sold for about 8 euros, has another 25 years of life and, as a tasting of the 100 euro bottle of the 1970 vintage showed, Colares Chitas is an unknown wine that grows more sumptuous with each passing year.

After uncorking, the wine must be left to decant in the bottle for at least two hours to dissipate the initial heavy perfume of Madeira and open the feathery aroma and flavor of fresh fruit and rich earth.

Back at Palacio Belmonte, Canico rolls the diesel-fuel dark Colares Chitas in his glass and frowns. ``I've never heard of this wine,'' he says before casting the final vote. ``This is better than our best port.''

(A. Craig Copetas is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)


Fonte: Bloomberg