Show notes
This episode we discover how a shipwrecked German wine heir accidentally changed Portuguese wines from the roots up, and why his daughter Dorina Lindemann began her winemaking journey with a fizz.Now her daughters are following in the family’s footsteps at Quinta da Plansel winery and plant nursery. We visit their estate in Montemor-o-Novo to learn about vinhos and vinhas – grapes and vines – the varieties, the grafts and the pesky pests that ruined Europe’s vineyards for half a century.After a gentle introduction to Portugal’s wines and grapes, this episode we are learning a lot: how to make champagne, we meet a couple of new grape varieties…and we head into the classroom to start our formal wine training.But we begin with some hard graft.Now in his 80s, Jorge explained how two types of vines were being grafted together by hand as half-metre lengths of American roots were being cut and interlocked with small clippings of Portuguese grape varieties using something called an “omega cut.”It’s how almost all European grapes survive the destructive phylloxera pest that arrived from America in the second half of the nineteenth century and still bugs vineyards today.“It was phylloxera, it was oidium and mildew. These diseases destroyed the European wine culture for half a century,” said Jorge, who has dedicated his life to Portuguese grapes after washing up in Lisbon in 1961 when a damaged sailing boat nipped his voyage to the Seychelles in the bud.Wine was in his blood as heir to a centuries old German “Hock” family which was shipping millions of bottles to the US and UK.But while exporting Portuguese wine home, Jorge realised how unpredictable its quality could be, and when the family business took a downturn in the 1970s he decided to help do something about it.“Portugal has officially 340 different varieties in the national catalogue of grapevine varieties, but there are very few – about 80 or 90 which are really studied,” Jorge said.He knows because he moved here to study and help develop them.“The process of grape vine production is a technology which has been developed since the beginning of the last century.”American root stocks were resistant to the phylloxera, oidium and mildew which invaded unprotected European vineyards when they arrived aboard ship.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.Grafting the old, traditional varieties on to the resistant roots allowed wineries to rebuild, recover and thrive, but the pests remain and the process continues today.Once grafted, wax is used to protect the join and the little Frankensteins are packed into boxes with peat and substrate to be locked away in a warming room for two or three weeks to grow together.They are then planted in the ground for a while before being uprooted, pruned and sold to winemakers – and wannabes like us – in Portugal and all over the world.The nursery began 40 years ago with a an in-depth study of Portuguese grapes and now produces one and a half million planting vines a year.Back in the late 1970s, Jorge worked with the Portuguese government and winemaking universities of Évora in Alentejo and Geisenheim in Germany to select the top 40 most promising grapes, made a load of wine and took it on a global tasting road trip.“We went to France to Montpellier University, to the Masters of Wine in London, to the university of Geisenheim and even to America to make a ranking of which are the best in the world and by this knowledge we started our breeding programme,” he said.“The result was always the same: the Touriga Nacional was normally the best and we started to build up these varieties in different forms.”He wrote a thick reference book on their work and began to select the best clones to make the best wines.Plansel also hosts an International Wine School which is featured in the podcast. Here’s an introduction to the course we joined…and to three grapes you may not have heard about before.“In 1980 my daddy brought 150 native varieties down to the Alentejo to be planted here. We tested them for quality, quantity, performance and everything,” said Dorina Lindemann, Jorge’s daughter who moved here in 1993 after studying oenology in Germany.She was dedicated to following the increasing international trend towards using single grape varieties for her wines.“I started with monovarietal wines, but nobody wanted to taste my wines because everybody in Portugal was used to the blends – they had at least a five, six or seven grape varieties mixture. It changed, but the beginning was very hard for me.”Dorina Lindemann still produces single variety wines, fresh sparkling wines and powerful blends from Quinta da Plansel.Her two daughters are following her into the business and her father still wanders remote vineyards in the summer heat looking for new clones.“He goes every day to the field: he goes to Spain, to the borders, he looks for which Aragonez [grape] has got more resistant, thicker skins,” said Dorina.Thank you for reading The Big Portuguese Wine Adventure. This post is public so feel free to share it.Bordeaux has elevated Touriga Nacional, one of the most famous Portuguese grapes, as an official grape for use in their famous and famously regulated blends – and that’s because they thrive in the searing temperatures of the Alentejo and the climate is changing.“We did never overcome the problem of what happened in 1850, when the English imported plants from America and brought the diseases,” said Jorge.“We reacted not by finding a variety which was resistant, but by using an excess of chemical intervention. And chemical intervention is not the solution.“It is destroying the bees and a thousand other things, and this cannot be a solution. It was a solution for 100 years, but it's not the future.“And that's why I'm working on that – I think this is important to maintain a natural, growing culture,” he said about his continuing, lifelong vocation of finding the perfect grapes.* To find out where you can buy Plansel wines where you live contact their online store here* Plansel also do tours and tasting visits and have accommodation Get full access to The Big Portuguese Wine Adventure at wineportugal.substack.com/subscribe