Bonus Episode (4): Talha with a twist

I love talking about talha or amphora wine - it’s one of the most exciting and popular winemaking techniques in the Alentejo.It’s natural wine, it’s gastronomic, and it works well with the traditional Alentejo foods like black pork…but it doesn’t taste like regular wine.Talha has an earthiness about it and is often quite heavy - like a lot of wines from Alentejo have traditionally been.But everyone here wants to make some wine in a clay pot - that’s why the ancient vessels are so hard to get hold of!And so winemakers are using talhas as one of the tools of their trade along with barrels and stainless steel vessels - to give certain tastes and flavours to their wines.That doesn’t mean they all throw their whole field-blended harvest, stalks and all, into an amphora and leave it there until November 11th.For this week’s bonus episode we’re being bundled into a car by Gerações de Talha’s Teresa Caeiro who took us to a talk we just couldn’t miss, while celebrating the opening of the talhas in Vila de Frades (Friars’ Town).For this week’s bonus episode we’re being bundled into a car by Gerações de Talha’s Teresa Caeiro who took us to a talk we just couldn’t miss, while celebrating the opening of the talhas in Vila de Frades (Friars’ Town).She took us to Natus - a fabulous small collection wine produced by Hamilton Reis…whose day job is head winemaker at Mouchão where we’ll be heading later in the series.He explained how it took him so long to come up with the perfect use for his talhas and about his passion project.Have a listen!The Big Portuguese Wine Adventure is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.We hope you like it - please tell your friends to subscribe for the podcast and the extra weekly bonus episodes we put out there if the episode is of particular interest. Get full access to The Big Portuguese Wine Adventure at wineportugal.substack.com/subscribe

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