Saturday 30 March 2013

Vegan Portuguese Wines

We are quite partial to a drop of good quality red wine and in the ‘spirit’ of keeping it local we wanted to be able to sample Portuguese vegan wines whilst we were here.  So on our first visit four years ago, we did some research beforehand and identified, sought out and have sampled several ever since.  Here are some of our favourites (all red as that is what we prefer);

Quinto de Esteveira (Douro region) – Vegan and organic – approximately €5.50
The bonus with this one is it is cheap but that means no less when it comes to flavour as it is one of our favourites.  We found this one in a health food store called BioViver in Aljezur (about 40 minutes up the west coast from Sagres).

Quinto do Coa Tinto CARM (Douro region) – Vegan and organic – approximately €10.99
Also available in white. This is one of the more expensive ones so a real treat normally but it is a very tasty example.  We are able to find this in Baptista in Luz and also in the big Intermarche in Lagos.  Bizarrely we found this last year in the wine shop in Wadebridge in Cornwall but it was about £15 a bottle there which kind of pushes the boundaries of treats to a once a year sheer indulgence.

Carm Classico Tinto Douro – Vegan and organic – approximately €7
Also available in rose.  The second cheapest choice we have found amongst our favourites and we like to say there is ‘no harm in a Carm’!  It goes down very well.  We have found this in Baptista in Luz and also the big Intermarche in Lagos.

Casa de Mouraz Tinto Dao – Vegan, organic and biodynamic – approximately €8
Also available in white and rose.  Probably our least favourite of our favourites but still very tasty regardless.  We have found this in the big Intermarche in Lagos but also in the nearest Intermarche to our campsite at Budens.

Quinta do Crasto - Vegan - approximately €9.50
We found this only this year in the Lagos Intermarche and only sampled it this very evening.  Not quite as fruity and smooth as the others but it still went down very well indeed with our evening meal.

We have also found reference to the following wines being vegan on the internet but we have been unable to find these as yet –

Quinto de Comenda
Cormaleur
Marrow
Piagentini
Valduga
Anything from the Cooperative Cellar of Covilha

Cheers!



7 comments:

  1. These bottles are full??

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    1. Not any more Steve! What, do you think we are mad? All gone now and the first cracked open as soon as the photo was taken.

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  2. Its not Steve!! Its TC
    Glad to hear you've been sampling plenty of the finest Portuguese wine.

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  3. Good work guys, have a glass or six for Alex and I!

    Paul

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  4. I just found your blog. Thanks for the recommendations. I'm off to Portugal soon. Can I ask: how did you do the research and how can you tell if local wines are vegan?

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  5. Hi Tracey - thanks for the comment. We originally found a list of Portuguese vegan wines on the internet from a wine supplier called Pageant Wines. I've just searched for the page again (we only have a print out now) and it seems they may no longer exist - http://www.wine-searcher.com/merchant/15748 - the only reference I found was this link. We also found a post from a Portuguese vegan who had kindly listed food and drink you could find over there but again, it is quite old and I only have a print out now (no reference online anymore). However, there re still sites out there that label and sell vegan wines - for instance Vinceremos (http://www.vinceremos.co.uk/organicwine/Organic_Wine_Portuguese_Organic_Red_Wine_40.html) - they have a few examples most of which are vegan. You can also find some wines in health food stores over there and some of these are not cleared/filtered so good to go. They tend to label these as unfiltered/vegan and you can even see the bits in the bottom of the bottle (so pour carefully!). One of our favourites is Quinta da Esteveira which is not labelled but you will see it on the Vinceremos site. We found this in a health food store in Aljezur (a few miles up the west coast from Sagres) and it is only about £5 a bottle. One of the health food stores in Lagos in the Algarve had a selection of local wines which were unfiltered so we enjoyed those a few times last trip. We have to say that on our last trip we struggled to find some of our old favourites in the supermarkets and they don't label their wines as vegan/veggie so we were stumped if we couldn't find the ones we already knew were okay. Hope this helps in some way and have a good trip!

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  6. PS. There is also http://www.barnivore.com/wine?region=Portugal which is a good site. I would urge you to have a search around yourself though on-line and I think we could even do a bit of an update at some point because I've just had a little look and according to Barnivore one of the wines we have drunk in the past (Casaz de Mouraz) has egg white in it (but was one of the wines that was on the Pageant Wines site)!

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