Vinho Verde is not green, it is not sweet and it is not a style of wine. It is a demarcated region in the north-west of Portugal, between the Minho and the Douro, and the name comes from the landscape rather than from the colour in the glass.
1908
The Vinhos Verdes demarcated region was created on 18 September 1908. It is one of the oldest demarcated regions in Europe, and most people ordering a Vinho Verde at a counter have no idea they are ordering an appellation more than a century old.
The region divides into nine sub-regions, each with its own soils and microclimates: Amarante, Ave, Baião, Basto, Cávado, Lima, Monção e Melgaço, Paiva and Sousa.
A Vinho Verde from Monção e Melgaço and one from Baião may have nothing in common except the seal. The sub-region on the label says more about the wine than the appellation does.
Vines up in the trees
The region is Atlantic, it rains a great deal and the soils are granite. Land was always worth too much to spend on vines alone.
The solution was old and ingenious: put the vine up high. In the enforcado system the vine climbs a living tree, chestnut or oak. In the ramada it climbs granite posts and wire, often along the edges of the fields.
Underneath there was free ground for maize, cabbage and potatoes. A family had both crops on the same plot.
High vines also catch the wind and dry quickly, which helps against mildew in a place that rains like that one. And because the fruit sits further from the heat reflected off the ground, it ripens with less sugar and more acidity. Hence the low alcohol and the freshness that define the region.
The white grapes
Loureiro is the most planted grape in the region and does best where the Atlantic reaches. It is where the floral aroma most people associate with Vinho Verde comes from, without knowing its name.
Alvarinho is the grape of Monção e Melgaço, at the far north, up against the river Minho. It makes wines with more body and more alcohol, which age well, and it is why prices in that sub-region look nothing like the rest.
On the other side of the river, in Galicia, the same grape is called Albariño and makes the wines of Rías Baixas. Same plant, with a border through the middle.
Arinto appears on Minho labels under another name, Pedernã. Same grape. It brings acidity and it lasts.
Trajadura gives body and little aroma, so it almost always goes into a blend. Avesso comes from the Douro valley, around Baião, and makes fatter, less acidic wines. Azal ripens late and holds high acidity.
The reds nobody mentions
The region makes red wine, and it is the part that rarely leaves the Minho.
Vinhão is the most used red grape. It gives a wine dark enough to stain the glass, with cutting acidity, drunk cold and from a bowl rather than a stemmed glass. It is served with rojões and with sarrabulho, and it does a job no southern red would do.
There is also Espadeiro, Padeiro, closely tied to Basto, and Borraçal.
Asking for a red Vinho Verde outside the Minho is usually asking for something that is not on the list. It is worth asking anyway.
The agulha
That light prickle on the tongue has a name: agulha, the needle.
Historically it came from malolactic fermentation happening inside the bottle, when wines were bottled early. It was an accident of the process, not a decision.
Today most producers control the malolactic and add a small dose of carbon dioxide at bottling to keep the effect. The region's more serious wines, the Alvarinhos above all, come out with no agulha at all.
How to pick one worth drinking
Read the sub-region before the brand. Monção e Melgaço for Alvarinho with body. Lima and Cávado for floral Loureiro. Baião for a fatter Avesso.
Look at the alcohol. Below 10 per cent is a light wine to drink young and cold. Above 12 per cent you are looking at a wine with a different ambition.
Be sceptical of the idea that Vinho Verde must be drunk within the year. An Alvarinho from Monção at three or four years old gains things it did not have leaving the winery.
At the table
With fried petiscos, shellfish and salt cod, a Loureiro or an Arinto does what is asked: cuts the fat without covering the food.
Serve at 8 to 10 degrees. Colder than that and the chill hides the aroma, which is exactly what you are paying for.
There is a wine list in both fado houses, in Chiado and in Alfama. Tables can be booked here.