DurstPortugieser “P” 2019 (750ml)

Portugieser is a native European grape with a fuzzy history. While I have heard from some people that Portugieser is a German grape, the general wine authorities (from Jancis Robinson to Wikipedia) suggest its deeper history lies in Austria, likely originating somewhere in the Danube valley. It has been said that some wine authority, at some historical moment, understood “Douro” instead of “Danube,” and thus the name Portugieser.

What you need to understand is that while Portugieser has basically no reputation in the U.S., in European countries it has a decidedly negative reputation. In other words, it’s generally thought of as crap. And indeed, most of it is. It is farmed in southern Germany (Pfalz, Baden), Slovenia and Austria and most often made into some type of industrial, light, off-dry swill. Portugieser can produce SERIOUS yields, thus the temptation for quantity over quality.

With this as the general context, let me begin by saying that Andreas’ Portugieser is one of the most hauntingly beautiful red wines we import. It is sourced from the oldest Portugieser vineyard on earth (I’m not sure how one proves this, but), a tiny, tiny parcel with 110+ year-old, ungrafted Portugieser vines planted on solid limestone. (We have included some photos of these magnificent vines, planted in 1906, in the gallery to the left.) In total, in a good year, these vines can produce maybe 70 cases of wine.

Durst’s Portugieser “P” is feathery and light-weight; even in youth there is a balance and finesse to the wine, a certain inherent elegance that feels not mature, but complex and layered. The nose is mysterious, earthen and faintly smoky, with perfumed highlights of violet and rose petals, suggesting a vocabulary similar to that of the great, more delicate wines of the Piedmont and Alto Piemonte. For all the satiny elegance, the palate has a compact, polite and stylish concentration, with sweet-floral inner-mouth aromatics. The tannic structure is present, even a touch rustic, yet present and integrated. I could go on – I love to write about this wine – but part of the pleasure here is the unexpected depth and profundity of this wine. It is not inexpensive, and worth every cent.

Andreas Durst farms less than one hectare (!) of vines in the far nothern Pfalz, in the same village in fact as the brothers Brand. Organic viticulture; low sulfur; unfined and unfiltered.