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A curious mix of cultures resulted in Zambujeiro - a phenomenal wine which scored 96 points from Robert Parker!

What Portugal brought to the wine?

• An excellent terroir mainly schist and clay which is located in the great wine region of the Alentejo – Portugal.

• The grapes – mostly local varietals like Aragones Trincadeira Castelao Alicante Bouschet and Touriga Nacional

• The thousand-years old Portuguese traditions of growing vines and making wines.

• Dedication of the Portuguese staff and their love for wine.

What did the Swiss bring to the wine?

• The determination to make  a great wine

• Making the wine with the best procedures

• The meticulous precision of the Swiss people

• Long range planning and patience

• A Swiss wine maker

• The ultimate in technology and equipment

The result?

An excellent wine that is comparable to Bordeaux at a fraction of the cost. This wine is adored in Switzerland Canada Hong Kong and it has replaced many high-end French wines.

Many top hotels restaurants and international resorts include the Zambujeiro wines in their fine wines menu:

Switzerland:

Restaurants Hotels:

Canada:

Portugal:

What we look for?

An importer who likes to have an excellent wine in his “stable” which will not cost an arm and a leg and will provide him with a long duration partnership of quality and good taste.

We are not looking for a HUGE BIG order – this winery does not produce lots of wine. We are looking for commitment and excitement and being part of the winery’s intention to sho0w how a Portuguese wine can “fight” head on with the expensive high quality French wine.

Call (530) 219-4334 for more information and samples.

Presenting the Swiss

Here is  the Swiss owner himself to give you more direct data about this excellent wine.

and the rest of the interview:

Tags: 96 points robert parker, portugal wines, quinta do zambujeiro, swiss winemaker, swiss wines, terra zambujeiro, zambujeiro

The Euro is going down

The last weeks the exchange rate trend of the Euro versus the American dollar is on the way down.

That means that the buying power of the American dollar is getting bigger and that means that the Portuguese wines are getting cheaper.

On Friday the Euro hit the 1.19 US dollar and that is CHEAP !

Here is the graph of the last weeks.

Is this good news?

Definitely YES! This means the prices of the imported wines form the EU will be realtively cheaper to import and will go lower in prices versus the American wines (California) AND the other countries that deal with the US dollar (like Australia Chile Argentins etc.)

So this means the Portuguese wine that already gave high quality for a cheaper price just gained an even bigger edge.

That gives you the importer an opportunity to give more quality for less money to your clients and consumers.

What to do ?

Go over the Portuguese wines offered to you and place an order now! Benefit from this opportunity and if you need help in locating good Portuguese wines and negotiating with the producers you can call us- your wine spies.

Getting you the answers

There are over 300 grape varieties in Portugal. There are thousands of wine producers and dozens of regions and sub-regions.

What about transport logistics credit terms case and pallet sizes? What type of wine do the Portuguese prefer? What type of wine is being exported to England? China?

There are many questions that you might have and we can answer.

If you have any questions regarding the wine production in Portugal we are willing to “spy” for you and get you the answer. If needed we will “recruit” our winemakers to join us in the “reconnaissance” missions for you.

Ask us

Just send your question to info@fast-change.com and let us know what is interesting for you to know about Portugal or its wines and we will get back to you pronto!

The Portuguese grape variety Alvarinho from the “Vinho Verde” Region now has new restrictions.

This grape now has an exclusive protection statute so that table wine even if its from the region can not have the denomination “Alvarinho”. The producers want to keep the good quality recognition that the grape has been receiving throughout the years and this way you won’t see a label with “Alvarinho” on a wine that does not have quality control.

Most of the Vinho Verde wines are made from a blend. Still the Alvarinho (also know as Albarino in Spain) is one of the most known and recognized white grapes from northern Portugal and has been used not only in its origin place the sub-regions of Monção and Melgaço but in other regions such as Douro.

Summer

This type of wine is actually very popular in the US probably the closest to Port and Madeira Wines in terms of market familiarity but unlike these its ripe fruit and freshness are much more appreciated in the summer.

The Euro hit $1.28 this morning down from $1.51 in December.  That is a drop of 17%. For the American importer that means 17% less price on the wine he imports from Europe.

Does the lower Euro and lower cost mean that European wines are likely to get cheaper on store shelves soon?

Dr Vino’s wine blog talked about this lately.

To show the trend here is a graph of the Euro versus the dollar for the last years.

While traveling to Europe will definitely be cheaper these days for the Americans than it was six months ago wine prices are not going to change dramatically and here is why.

A few years ago when the dollar went down in comparison with the Euro the importers had to raise prices as the wine costed them more but most of them did not raise at all or just raised it a little bit as the competition became fiercer and one had to maintein prices as low as possible.

The same will most probably happen now when the Euro is going down.

Not all importers will lower prices and not for the whole amount of the difference netween the currencies. This is due for several reasons:

1. When the Euro went up a few years ago some EU producers made a deal with the importers to give big discounts as not to raise the prices too high and now when the price is cheaper it is time to pay the producer back the big discounts they gave.

2. The last years were not that easy low profits (if any) will make the importers not lower prices so they can recuperate the losses of last years.

3. It is certainly not a good idea to base the prices on the lower point of the Euro. Soon the exchange rate can bounce back and then the importers will have to increase the prices – which will of course create a “shock” and result in less sales. From what you can see on the graph that happened last year… the Euro went down and then up again and it might do the same thing this year logically.

4. My advise to the importers an advise of a Chief Wine Spy is to use the extra money to promote my wines and get a better share of  the market.

Pssst…. When you consider cashing in on the lower Euro then you should too consider the very good quality to price ratio the Portuguese wines have now. It is a winning combination

Modernization comes to the names

The wine regions in Portugal are many and of course have Portuguese names.

These names make sense to a Portuguese but seldom to a foreigner who sometimes even has to struggle with the pronunciation.

As some of you might know the Portuguese wine region previously known as Ribatejo is today called Tejo.

Now also the denomination of origin has changed from DOC “Ribatejo” to DOC “DoTejo”.

This is closely connected with the proximity of the region to the Tejo river (you may know it as Tagus as well). This follows the trend that began with the “Lisboa” Region (formerly “Estremadura”) creating a common identity for the wines of the region with a good and pronounceable word that people can relate to. See the differences in the logos:

The sub-regions included on this new nomenclature “Do Tejo” are: Almeirim Cartaxo Chamusca Coruche Santarém and Tomar.

Tags: doc, lisboa, name, portugal, region, ribatejo, sub-regions, tejo

Fonseca Guimaraens launched this month the first “entirely organic port wine ” called Terra Prima the company announced stating also that it was a Ruby Reserve.

“The Fonseca Terra Prima is the fruit of high quality grapes fortified with a very fine brandy creating a tremendously fruity and delicious wine. Its aromatic richness and intensity in the mouth will appeal to virtually any consumer” says the winemaker and director of the Technical Area da Fonseca. To fortify the wine the company had to search for a brandy that is also organic and as there were no organic brandy available in Portugal the company had to obtain it from Spain.

Tags: bio, import, organic, port, portugal, portuguese, producer, quality, wine

If you think you know the diversity in Portuguese Wines think again…

Portugal is known for its diversity in wine regions microclimates grape varieties and terroirs giving us the chance to find very unique and special wines across the country.

You may have heard about the region of Colares but if you haven’t take some notes about it. This is a very small region between the Sintra mountains and the Atlantic Ocean a region which was very trendy a century ago and attracted royal families from around Europe. It has been getting very low attention in the last decades.

In the 60’s there was a great deal of real state speculation and many of the agriculture activities were left abandoned.If the region already had a low production it only got worse and the region has been left almost unknown to the market.

Reborn

Now the producers are getting together planting more vines having a more consistent production and increasing it to make the region prosperous again.

What makes it Special?

This a very small and low yield area where you can find a rare grape variety unique to the region the Ramisco. The region itself is situated between the mountains and the ocean where it is hardly affected by the sea breeze and which has very high humidity.

The terrain is also very sandy and not so fertile demanding from the producers different strategies of planting and maintaining the vines – the number of vines per hectare is usually lower that in other regions. These conditions give the wine very rare characteristics with low alcohol volume and high acidity – it normally requires aging of 4 years.

Here’s what a wine blogger had to say about this.

So here you have a new region to discover and a new opportunity for another unique and special product.

Tags: colares, portugal, portuguese, region, unique, vines, wine

Some wine reasons for the business trip

There are tens of thousands wine producers in Portugal and the majority of them are not present in the American market. You can still discover therefore good business in Portugal.

• • High quality to price ratio. This is today the main buzzword that is connected with Portugal. Very competitive price for the quality you get.
  • New modern wineries and old wineries – most of them equipped with modern space and equipment.
  • New educated and experienced wine makers that use the latest technologies on top of the traditional artisan ways of the Portuguese wine making processes.
  • Special tastes and aromas not present in any other wines from other parts of the world.

A free ticket

The Portuguese government has a program to help export the Portuguese wine and part of this program is to bring to Portugal importers that are interested in Portuguese wines.

It can be a very simple process that will allow you the American importer to take a business trip to Portugal with the expenses of the air tickets hotel etc. covered by the Portuguese  government.

If you are interested why don’t you send an email to “special spy” Sar Perlman at sar@PortugalWines.Org who will give you more information how to achieve this business opportunity and will help you present your request for the free business trip.

Tags: business, import, new, portugal, portuguese, trip, wine

The research

Continued consumption of red wine can stabilize blood vessels in the penis
A study unveiled by the Faculty of Medicine University of Porto (FMUP) Portugal  concludes that the continued consumption of red wine can stabilize blood vessels in the penis.

The study aimed to analyze “what kind of influence they have nutritional value in the vascular system?” Said today the author Delminda Neves.

“The polyphenols (antioxidants) in red wine may in fact promote the stabilization of existing blood vessels in the erectile tissue of the penis” he added.

To conduct this research Delminda Neves used for six months three groups of mice: one was to drink red wine exclusively other solutions that only drank alcohol at a concentration equivalent to that present in the wine and finally another was that the water .

According to above the effect of regular intake of red wine helped to stabilize the blood vessels.

It was also possible to verify according to the researcher that the ingestion of alcohol results in fewer fat cells that accumulate in the periphery of the cavernous blood vessels thus suggesting a protective effect against atherosclerosis.

For Delminda Neves the results of this study can not by itself be extrapolated to humans because in this situation the red wine emerged as the only variable while in human red wine can always appear in conjunction with other foods.

However she emphasized the study “is a valid model to assess the effects of polyphenols in red wine the expression of growth factors and vascular maintenance.”

The researcher said that the investigations will continue to try to understand the effects of red wine in the vascular system of an elderly as well as the effects of a high-fat diet since obesity leads to atherosclerosis.

Promotion for red wine

Imagine the effect this research can create on the red wine market.

This is a subject of concern for every male who now knows that red wine will help his sexual activity while having fun by drinking good red wine.

Tags: body, consumption, health, port, porto, study, wine