Costing near $15, with a nice 14% alcohol, the 2009 Portal Reserva from the Douro in Portugal, scored 16+ points on the Dionysian scale of 20.

It’s a food wine. 50% Touriga Nacional , 40% Tinta Roriz, and 10% Touriga Franca,the same grapes that go into the best Porto’s, provides black cherry, smoky notes,and a full body red table wine for heavy meals. It’s bone dry.

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At only 11 years old, the wine was still purple and needs another decade to mellow.

I’ve been drinking little known Portuguese wines for decades and at prices that were so small, you always bought them by the case. That’s changing. This is a wine that reflects the terroir it came from. In Vino Veritas.