Pick your kind of wine
Wine styles
Red: Elegant
Dão has perhaps the greatest concentration in Portugal of elegant reds; altitude is high, the soils granite, the climate cool, ripening slow. Fine-quality Touriga Nacional is blended with Tinta Roriz, Alfrocheiro, Jaen and other grapes to make intensely-flavoured, perfumed reds with good acidity and lovely balance. The red wines of Palmela on the Península de Setúbal can be elegant, made from the Castelão grape, which is difficult elsewhere but able in the sandy soils of the Setúbal Peninsula to ripen well and give reds wines with complex, fruity flavours, good acidity and balanced tannins, ageing to a cedary character not unlike that of mature Cabernet Sauvignon.
When to drink & Food pairings:
These are versatile wines, fine at any time of year, good to drink by themselves, and easy with a range of food, from poultry to red meats to cheese.
