What is Baga all about and why does it suit the Bairrada terroir? We find out with one of Portugal’s most famous wine producers – the Luis Pato wine family. The Pato family have been making wines for several generations, but Luis Pato changed the game by focusing on quality production.Pato first caused a bit of a ruckus in the family by starting making wine with his mother-in-law, rather than his own mother, but it was because the soils on her property were chalky-clay (Jurassic era) soils, which he thought were better for Baga than the sandy soils his mother had.
In the late 80s, Luis Pato wines starting gaining critical acclaim in Portugal and internationally and today the winery is among the most respected producers of Baga wines. We walk through the vineyards with the youngest generation of the Luis Pato wine dynasty, Luis’ daughter Maria João Pato, to discover the different soils of Bairrada and its climatic influences. We also talk about the 2017 vintage and why it could be one of the best yet:
Luis Pato wine tasting notes
Maria Gomes 2013 €12
This bright lemon-coloured sparkling wine is made in the ancestral method with just once fermentation in the bottle. Lively citrus notes mix with a crisp, dry finish making this a great aperitif bubbly. There is 5% Sercialinho blended with 95% Maria Gomes.
Informal 2013 €12
Made from the free-run juice of their earliest pick of Baga grapes from the Panasqueira vineyard (which effectively acts like a green harvest, so the remaining grapes are ready to make the more concentrated red wine later), this has a coppery pink colour after three years on the lees. The nose is filled with cherry and wild strawberry notes and the mouth has a lovely aromatic, crisp finish.
Vinhas Velhas 2016 €10
A ‘cocktail of Bairrada’ with Bical grapes coming from their chalky-clay vineyard, and Cercial and Sercialinho from the sandy soils. Luis Pato is the only producer of Sercialinho in the world, and while it only makes up 25% of the blend, it gives the wine a notable acidic backbone. This unoaked white is fresh and lively, best with seafood.
Vinha Formal 2012 €18
This is 100% Bical from their chalky-clay soils kept as a single-vineyard lot and aged for a year in oak. More developed on the nose with a smooth mouthfeel, it is fresh and almost creamy. A lovely white wine.
Vinha Pan 2013 €30
This single-variety Baga comes from the same chalky-clay soils as the Informal sparkling, but it is harvested much later, when the concentration has reached the optimum deep red fruit expression. The mouth has racy acidity and peppery tannins, that show the more elegant style of the variety.
Vinha Barrio 2001 €40
This is the lower vineyard but the same soil composition and takes on a slightly more herbal quality, which is shrouded in the rich truffle notes that come with age. Smooth, eloquent and shows the real ageing potential of Baga.
Vinha Barossa 2013 €30
This red wine has striking mint on the nose, for which Luis Pato credits the eucalyptus trees nearby. It is a very fresh and attractive wine with bright herbal and fruit aromas, and an impressive balance achieved by 80-year-old vines.
Transcript of interview with Maria Joao Pato of Luis Pato
So, can you tell me about Bairrada: the soils, the climate, what’s typical of the region?
Limestone soils from the Jurassic era at Luis Pato
Ok, we have the clay. And we have the limestone. On the limestone you can find these fossils, the shells. Or you can find the ammonite fossils that are more important. That says that the formation of this soil was from the Jurassic era.
Regarding the temperature here, we have a very huge Atlantic influence. And that makes a very big difference of temperature between the days and the nights. During the day, the temperature can be around 30 degrees. During the night, the temperature is more or less the same as in the water in the Ocean that is 20km far from here. Do you know what is the temperature in the ocean here? 16 degrees! Yes, it’s really, really cold. If you go there to swim, you’ll understand. It’s hard to swim, but it’s very nice for health because it keeps the freshness which is a signature of Bairrada wines. I forgot to tell you why chalky soil is so important in Bairrada. Because it gives the structure the wines, the smokiness, the fullness, that’s very enriching for the wines.
One of the Luis Pato vineyards
Super, and your father [Luis Pato] when he started making wines here, he particularly looked for this soil for reds. Why? And for Baga in particular. How does it impact the character of the Baga grape?
I think in the beginning, it was not a matter of choosing. It was a matter of having the red grapes here in chalky clay soils. There’s one interesting thing, when he first started it was in the 80s. When he went to London for the first tasting of his wines, in 1984, people were asking him if the wine had some wood [oak ageing]. At that time it was not possible to have wood [oak], it was all cement vats. And we think that people were asking that because of this soil. Because this soil gives the sensation of smokiness, that can sometimes be felt as having smoke, wood.
Perfect. And then my last question is about this vintage – 2017. Now all the leaves are changing, you’ve finished your harvest. Has it been an earlier vintage? What’s the character of the wine this year?
Luis Pato wine harvest
We are pretty happy this year. We were not thinking that it would be so good as it is. Because we had a lack of rain….
Which, in Bairrada, you get quite a lot of rain on a normal year?
Yes. So we thought that the acidity was going down, and sometimes it can happen that the ripeness [maturation] can stop. But this year it didn’t. We have a very good ripeness [maturation] and we could keep the very good acidity. Why? Because of the temperature that we have here in Bairrada. This year was very, very nice. Because we had fog, all the days during almost two months during harvest. Until 11am. That was really good to maintain a proper acidity. And then we had very hot days, so we had a very good ripeness. So it’s perfect to keep the acidity, to have a better ripeness, we couldn’t have found it better! And the grapes were in a very, very nice conditions. So my father [Luis Pato] says it is the best vintage he made so far.
Ever?
And it is not expected! Because he believes in the cycles of ten years, twenty years, something that was not expected to be a very nice vintage.
Great, so Baga 2017 – Bairrada. Best buy!
Yes!
More information on the Luis Pato wine portfolio is available here.
