Bring the sunshine into your life with wines from Portugal

Feb 5 2010 by Helen Savage, The Journal

THE first I heard about Portovino was an email invitation from Paul Raven to a tasting of Portuguese wines. “I just want your help,” he wrote, “in choosing some wines from about 40 I have sourced, with a view to starting a new importing venture with a few like-minded individuals.”

It was not an offer to refuse, even though I’d already spent the earlier part of the afternoon in Edinburgh tasting 50 Portuguese wines chosen by fellow wine writer Jamie Goode.

It was a tough act to follow, but Paul’s tasting was highly congenial and the general standard of wines very good, though my notes became even less coherent than usual.

Paul owns a furniture business, Newcastle Furniture Company, which manufactures high-quality kitchens. As well as showrooms in other parts of the UK, they have three dealerships abroad. One of these is in Portugal.

“I’ve been going over there every year for the past 12 years,” Paul told me, “and discovered that everyone there seems to know someone in the wine trade.

“We’d make a kitchen for someone and then see their name on a bottle of wine.”

A succession of happy winemakers with sparkling new kitchens, gently suggested that Paul might like to sell their wine back in the UK. Last year he finally decided to have a go.

He teamed up with Alan Holmes, like Paul a keen member of the North East Wine Tasting Society, and to learn more, got an invitation to the London version of the annual Fifty Best Wines of Portugal tasting.

At another London tasting they were so impressed by an enterprising group of Portuguese winemakers, that they followed them back to Portugal for a closer look.

Their Companhia das Quintas unites seven up-and-coming wine estates, which they market together with the help of local businessmen. Paul and Alan are now delighted to be their sole UK outlet.

To add more variety and to bring their list up to around 25 wines, Paul and Alan also stock a few wines bought from larger UK shippers, but they would prefer to source all their wines themselves.

“There’s no point doing the same as everyone else,” Paul says. So they’re off to Portugal again soon to hunt for more goodies.

Kitchen sales also continue to bring new contacts. Paul discovered that Alison Luiz Gomes, an English client in the Alentejo, near the Spanish border, turned out to be a very talented winemaker.