Caves Bonifacio Alicante Bouschet 2009
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The most famous of the rare, red-fleshed grape varieties, Alicante Bouschet is known as a Teinturier grape. While most red grapes have red skin but clear flesh or pulp, the French, Alicante Bouschet and the Georgian (country) variety called, Saperavi, both have red. These make intensely hued, full-bodied red wines that take to oak well and can stand some time in the cellar. Somm Secret—While originally the product of a French crossing (Petit Bouschet and Grenache) of the late 1800s, today Alicante Bouchet grows widely in Spain and is gaining notoriety in Portugal.
Best known for intense, impressive and age-worthy fortified wines, Portugal relies almost exclusively on its many indigenous grape varieties. Bordering Spain to its north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean on its west and south coasts, this is a land where tradition reigns supreme, due to its relative geographical and, for much of the 20th century, political isolation. A long and narrow but small country, Portugal claims considerable diversity in climate and wine styles, with milder weather in the north and significantly more rainfall near the coast.
While Port (named after its city of Oporto on the Atlantic Coast at the end of the Douro Valley), made Portugal famous, Portugal is also an excellent source of dry red and white Portuguese wines of various styles.
The Douro Valley produces full-bodied and concentrated dry red Portuguese wines made from the same set of grape varieties used for Port, which include Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (Spain’s Tempranillo), Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca and Tinto Cão, among a long list of others in minor proportions.
Other dry Portuguese wines include the tart, slightly effervescent Vinho Verde white wine, made in the north, and the bright, elegant reds and whites of the Dão as well as the bold, and fruit-driven reds and whites of the southern, Alentejo.
The nation’s other important fortified wine, Madeira, is produced on the eponymous island off the North African coast.