Baga, Baga, We Accept You

Luis Pato has spent a lifetime marketing himself as Mr. Baga. And he's earned it. I like his quirky lower level wines a lot: his Rebel, Baga Natural, the sparkling wines based on Baga - wines seemingly designed to show how versatile Baga is and how suitable it is to creative and imaginative winemakers. What I still haven't come to grips with is the Big Baga wines, the single vineyard wines (Pan, Barrosa) that look to require a decade or two to show well. Pato's direct inheritor is his daughter, Filipa, who runs her own operation. She was on my list and I picked up an interesting wine in Porto, Filipa Pato, Bairrada, Post Quercus, 2016, which is Baga aged in amphorae. There's an almost Burgundian/Beaujolais feel to it, due to its silky tannins, earthy aromas, and tart cranberry fruit. But Baga is a much darker grape than Gamay, let alone Pinot Noir, and it has a very distinctive shade and flavor of iron that I don't find in any other grape, and none of that is lost here. In short, Filipa shows yet another facet of Baga as she crafts a complex, sensual wine out of it.

[Jenise]

Interesting post, Chaim. Not a grape I've heard of before. Does it go by any other name in other locales? I know Portugal has its own names for grapes known by other names in Spain, for instance. (Graciano came to mind, from your description.)

[Jenise]

Hmmm...I just attempted to answer my own question, and apparently not. Baga is baga.

I read this description of it on a Portugese website: One of the highest yielding Portuguese grape varieties, Baga can be found in a few parts of the country, but is most concentrated in the Beiras area, especially in Bairrada and Dão. The grapes come into their own when ripe, showing wines of deep colour, great structure and ample acidity with powerful tannins and balanced brilliantly to evolve well in the bottle.

The aroma starts out with red cherry/berry fruit developing into red/black plum, tobacco and coffee bean flavors finishing with expansive complexity. The grape’s ample acid leads to quality sparkling wine production, and it is often proclaimed as the best in Portugal comes from the region of Bairrada."

That caused me to wonder if by any chance it's being grown in Washington state as an aromatic deep-colored grape with ample acidity would be a useful blending grape in our increasingly hot climate. The answer to that question is also "apparently not" as google, unable to understand 'baga' and 'Washington state' in the same query, asked me if I meant 'bugs' instead.

For a high yields grape, it can produce dark, tannic wines.

As for the sparkling wines, they're interesting. More like Meunier rather than Pinot Noir or Chardonnay.

But then again, the only producer I've tasted is Luis Pato - although I have drunk a lot of Pato.

I've only ever tried one Baga wine, years ago, and it wasn't good. Sounds like better things are happening nowadays.

Know Baga quite well as we have a good selection downtown.