Wine of the Week! 12/18/2023

Quinta dos Grilos Dão Reserva Red

Normally $13.99 / Now on Sale for $11.96
40% Aragonez , 40% Touriga Nacional, 20% Jaen

Two weeks ago we talked about the prestigious Dão region in the mountains of north central Portugal when we featured the entry level red from Quinta dos Grilos (Cricket Farm). To remind you, Quinta dos Grilos (owned by massive Dão negotiant, Global Wines) was founded in 1993 with the goal of making accessible, crowd-pleasing versions of the complex, acidic, food-friendly wines for which the Dão is famous. Now, we’re pleased to feature their next step up, the Grilos Dão Reserva.

Reserve, Réserve, Riserva, and Reserva are all words that you run across in wines, and they mean the same thing in general while meaning different things in particular depending on the country. In Portugal — as we currently understand it —the laws that regard wines define the term to mean wines of more notable characteristics than others. It’s broad, but it allows vintners to say, “These are our wines that are good; these are our wines that are better than the good ones.”

Aged for nine months in French oak barrels, the Quinta dos Grilos Dão Reserva benefits from the same grapes as its little sibling — Aragonez (a.k.a Tempranillo in Spain), Tourgia-Nacional (a “usual suspect” in Ports), and Jaen (a.k.a. Mencía in Spain) — but in slightly different quantities.

Keeping the Jaen at the same level, they’ve reduced the Aragonez and increased the Touriga-Nacional to equal parts each, giving the Reserva a rounder and fuller fruit — a silky smooth cross between raspberry and plum flavors. However, rather than being bright, up top, and in your face, the fruit sits deep in the glass, its light tannins on the finish masquerading as smokiness.

It’s interesting how just that little bit more of Touriga-Nacional makes this a wine so clearly from the country that gives us Port.