The Lisbon wine region holds nine denominations of origin. Three of them sit less than an hour from Rossio: Colares, Bucelas and Carcavelos. Between them they make less wine than one mid-sized Alentejo estate.
18 September 1908
On that day a royal charter demarcated Colares and Carcavelos. Bucelas was only demarcated in 1911.
They are among the oldest demarcated regions in Europe. Ahead of them stands the Douro, demarcated in 1756 by the Marquês de Pombal.
The wider region was called Estremadura until 2009. It became Lisboa because Spanish Extremadura also makes wine and the capital's name travelled better.
Colares grows inside the sand
Colares lies between the Serra de Sintra and the Atlantic, 25 kilometres north-west of Lisbon. It is the westernmost demarcated region in Europe.
Vines there are planted in dune sand. To reach the clay that holds the water, growers dig pits three metres deep and the root goes down to find it.
The vine stays close to the ground. The denomination's rules do not allow it above 40 centimetres.
Against the sea wind, each plot is walled in with cane, stone, zinc or plastic. The harvest is picked on your knees.
The vines phylloxera never reached
Phylloxera arrived in Portugal in 1865 and destroyed almost every vineyard in the country. Since then nearly all Portuguese wine comes from European vines grafted onto American rootstock.
Not in Colares. The insect cannot move through loose sand, and the vines stayed ungrafted, on their own roots. The rules require it: sand, no graft.
The red grape is Ramisco, documented in Colares since 1790. A red from the denomination must carry at least 80 per cent Ramisco. The white carries 80 per cent Malvasia de Colares.
One thousand and sixty-nine hectares, then twelve
The 1938 book Os Vinhos de Colares recorded 1,069 hectares of vineyard in the region. By the late 1990s around 12 were left.
Today it stands at roughly 22 hectares.
Adega Regional de Colares was founded in 1931 and is the oldest cooperative winery in the country. It still bottles close to half the region's wine.
Bucelas and Arinto
Bucelas sits 25 kilometres north of Lisbon, in the Trancão valley, on clay-limestone hillsides. No other Portuguese denomination is given over to white wine alone.
The wine must be at least 75 per cent Arinto. The other 25 per cent can be Esgana Cão, which in Madeira goes by Sercial, and Rabo de Ovelha.
Shakespeare names it charneco in Henry VI. During the Peninsular War, Wellington took it back to England, where it became known as Lisbon Hock and reached the table of George III.
For decades João Camilo Alves and his Caves Velhas were almost the only merchant putting DOC Bucelas on the market. In 2010 the town was given the title Capital do Arinto.
Carcavelos nearly vanished
Carcavelos is a fortified wine, stopped with grape spirit, sweet and amber in colour. The grapes are Galego Dourado, Ratinho, Arinto and Boal, with Castelão in the red.
The Marquês de Pombal kept his estate here, in Oeiras. By 1769 the wine was already listed in a Christie's auction catalogue in London.
Through the twentieth century, building between Lisbon and Cascais ate almost all the vineyard. The first five hectares were replanted in 1983, on Pombal's old estate.
In October 2024 the denomination held 32 hectares. Villa Oeiras, a project of Oeiras council with the Estação Agronómica Nacional, works about 20 of them and makes some 60,000 bottles a year.
In Cascais the council brought back 2.7 hectares at Santa Maria do Mar. The 2021 harvest was the first there in fifteen years.
The other six
Alenquer is sheltered from the Atlantic by the Serra de Montejunto and gives the region's most concentrated reds.
Torres Vedras lies on the western side of the same range, catches the wind, and makes dry whites and low-alcohol vinho leve. Óbidos is sparkling wine country. Arruda dos Vinhos is inland, north of Bucelas, and since 2002 may use Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.
Lourinhã is a denomination for grape brandy, created by Decree-Law 34/92 of 7 March. There is no other in Portugal, and in Europe only Cognac and Armagnac hold equivalent standing.
That leaves Encostas d'Aire, to the north, the largest of the nine by vineyard area.
At the table
A Bucelas Arinto with four or five years on it serves salt cod, clams and fried petiscos better than a young white from anywhere else. Serve at 10 to 12 degrees.
A red Colares has hard tannins when young and only settles after ten or fifteen years. It is worth asking for the vintage before ordering.
Carcavelos is drunk at the end of a meal, with egg sweets or with cured cheese. Villa Oeiras ages it for about ten years in wood.
The wine lists differ between the two fado houses, in Chiado and in Alfama. Between them there are 12 wines from the Lisbon region, Bucelas included: the list is here and tables can be booked here.