Catavino - Latest Comments

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Riedel Wine Glasses — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:43:16 -0000

I love Latin food in general but I can't deny that the Portuguese have a certain way of preparing, well, everything that is so unique and delicious. Bacalhau is a favorite and many countries and several songs actually refer to it in many different ways ( some not so flattering to the female species). And then of course there is the wine..... There is nothing like regarding your taste buds with the intricacies of local wine. Can't wait to go back to Portugal!

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

AndreaInWine — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:23:58 -0000

Thanks Anji, I hope so! :)

Re: Goodbye 2011, Hello Future

Lizzy — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 06:24:24 -0000

Happy New Year, guys! We are waiting for sharing with you new adventures in the wine world. We follow you wherever you go!

Lizzy

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Portugal Property — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:46:39 -0000

I am totally in love
with Portuguese food I have lived here now for 5 years and the
variety of flavours is stunning I even almost like the pigs ears in
my Cozida. Likewise the wine is superb, perhaps lacking a little in
sophistication but most quafable. I keep wishing that some of
these recipes made there way into pies I know I have no right
whatsoever to talk about pies in the sentence after mentioning
sophistication but I suppose that is the British for you.

Superb article well
done.

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Anji — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:40:55 -0000

A very thorough and delicious article! Makes you want to go to Portugal!

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

AndreaInWine — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:17:44 -0000

Pedro,
Thank you so much for your feedback! It's makes me very happy to hear such a warm response by the Portuguese people :) I know sometimes this country can be too hard on itself but it is because of all of you and the delicious things you create that made me want to write this piece and the others before that, as well as still giving me plenty to write about in the future! All us take things for granted about our own country at times and normally we only learn how to fully appreciate them when we no longer have them around ;) I always miss my mom's cooking when I'm away from home but now when I go back there for a bit, I then start to miss all the delicious Portuguese cooking as well! :)

Mais uma vez obrigada, e não faz mal com o seu ingles porque pode ver que ainda eu preciso de practicar mais o meu portugues ;)

Cumprimentos,
Andrea

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Pedro Gonçalves — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:47:22 -0000

I have to congratulate you on this great write, probably we Portuguese people do not realize about our country, its very nice to read this precious words from a person who cames from another continet. Im proud to be Portuguese.

Once More, Thanks Andrea for your GREAT Article. Enjoy Portugal and i hope you stay here for many years.

Regards,
Pedro Gonçalves

PS: Sorry about my poor english, but i working on it ;)

Re: Cha, cha, cha, changes…Spanish wine needs to learn from the Pancho affair

Bill — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:52:47 -0000

Ryan, Excellent distillation of points (pun intended) we have discussed and agreed upon in the past. Wine drinkers of the world, EDUCATE YOURSELVES!!! That is the best way to overthrow the shackles of the 100 point scale or 5 glass scale, etc., etc. TRUST YOUR OWN PALATE!!! EXPERIMENT!! And, do take Ryan's advice by sharing with friends.

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

AndreaInWine — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:16:11 -0000

Thanks so much Mike! I will definitely keep writing on some venue, at least on my Twitter for now :) Please tell your followers though aside from reading, coming here to experience it for themselves is even better! :)

Re: Hey, ho! Please let Pancho go! ~ Time for some wine drinking.

Jim Budd — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:02:22 -0000

'Jim, I do hope you enjoy your glass of wine at the end of the day, but do, please do, keep up your good work! '

Carrie and others thank you for your support and please be assured that I do always enjoy a glass or so of wine at the end of the day. For the moment the story continues to envolve.

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Mike — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:07:14 -0000

I just recommend my followers to keep reading all your articles and gastronomy experiences in Portugal. Wonderful work and keep enjoying our great gastronomy variety.
All the best
Luis

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Cortes de Cima — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 06:12:19 -0000

Andrea, in such a short time through your writing and photos, you have become a great 'Brand Ambassador' for 'Brand Portugal'! Thanks for helping us to sell Portugal to the world, and the great Portuguese gastronomy and wine traditions!

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Daniel Pinho — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:19:43 -0000

Andrea,

Of course you couldn't cover everything in one article. I just wrote it as a "curiosity agitator". Hope you can continue to discover all the nice things that this country has to offer!

Thanks for your interest;)
Daniel

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

AndreaInWine — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:03:30 -0000

Thanks for your educational feedback Daniel! Yes, I would definitely agree with you that the Northern region probably has some great meats as well, as I already mentioned they are known for some of the best cured meats. Please understand though that with so many wonderful and delicious things from all over Portugal, it would have been impossible for me to mention every single one in even couple of articles, let alone one! (As much as I would have liked to, this post was already cut down in size!)

What I tried to do in this post was to mention some of the most known as well as my favorite things that I have have ranked at the top from my experience so far. Of course I still have plenty more places to explore and food and drink to try, which I intend to write about in the near future!

I will definitely keep you in mind for my next travels to the North, I am always excited for what new, delicious things I continue to find in this beautiful country :)

Cheers,
Andrea

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Daniel Pinho — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:49:12 -0000

Andrea,

Congrats for such a nice piece.

One remark that I think could really help on further researching this wonderful country: You say that the most prized meats come from the Alentejo, but I think that is a bit of a dangerous statement.

In fact, some of the most sought after meats come from Northern Portugal, specially from the Barroso lands and from Arouca. The "Vitela Barrosã" is some of the best meat you can ever have, and so is the "Vitela Arouquesa".

If you are interested in researching a bit more about this, I would recomend to visit a restaurant called Abocanhado in a very tiny village called Brufe in Gerês for the "Vitela Barrosã" or any of the stake joints in Alvarenga, for a proper Vitela Arouquesa steak.

Alentejo is great of course, but as with wine, there's much more to this country to discover and savour.
Hope you have a good time and don't hesitate to contact me if you want to go a bit deeper into these subjects.

Thanks.
daniel

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Vitor Mendes — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:28:57 -0000

Thank you Andrea for such a great article about Portuguese products and traditions! It makes me proud to have you as a friend, and I hope you keep writing. And thank you Gabriella and Ryan for all the amazing moments reading the articles on Catavino... you were my motivation to reach for my dreams...

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Mary H Goudie — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:04:29 -0000

Andrea: we are neighbors - I live in Campo de Ourique too - please feel free to give me a ring on 213-977-550 so that we can meet up in person. I am on skype too - at2anubi if you have a skype contact, or just send me an email to lisbonguide@gmail.com This special lunch is now a feature of my Lisbon Private tours. You can't get better than this, plus it is great to hear the ooo's & ahh's when they try the Red Alentejo and Dao wines for the 1st time. On one occasion after a lunch here the Lisbon Port wine institute was a let down - how good can you get when you sample the REAL thing!

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

AndreaInWine — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:41:42 -0000

You're welcome, that's exactly the reaction I was trying to achieve! :)

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

AndreaInWine — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:38:48 -0000

Great! And I see they went to Aromas e Sabores de Campo de Ourique in my neighborhood, I was just there the other week actually so good choice! ;) Thanks for your feedback!

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Mary H Goudie — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:14:03 -0000

What all my private tour guests should know! They will thank you for getting the most out of their visit to Portugal. I always suggest that lunch is part of the tour experience - they always agree as you can see from the image below.

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Brett — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:05:32 -0000

What a delicious, mouth watering piece about this delightful country! Thank you Andrea.

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

AndreaInWine — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:15:25 -0000

Thank you! I appreciate the positive feedback, a great motivation to keep writing! :)

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Gabriella Opaz — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:49:48 -0000

We're rather proud of her too! And yes Andrea, keep up the great writing!!

Re: 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!

Grey-metal — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:33:10 -0000

Andrea,

A truly wonderful capstone article on the Portuguese Food and Wine experience! Keep up the great writing.

Love,
Dad

Re: Hey, ho! Please let Pancho go! ~ Time for some wine drinking.

Carrie Jorgensen — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:19:33 -0000

From a winery's point of view, I think Jim Budd has done us all a great service in his untiring investigative work into this whole untasteful affair. A task with more risks than obvious rewards, that many would have shirked from.

It's rare to meet a wine journalist who is not living on a shoestring budget, and needs to find help to finance their traveling expenditures, which they often can do through generic wine marketing bodies like ViniPortugal, or one of the Regional Wine Associations, like our Alentejan CVRA, or even sometimes from larger, well healed wineries themselves. What most obviously keeps a lot of these journalists going is a great amount of passion for their jobs, as the financial rewards must be more modest.

What we as a small winery fear most, as do the generic wine bodies like VIniPortugal, is this to change, and being asked to fork out hefty sums as 'fees' to these same journalists, something we have personally, been spared so
far. With thanks to the good work and perserverance of the Jim Budds out there, we hope that a lid can be kept on this sort of greed.

Re. Parker, Wine Spectator, WIne Enthusiast points etc, no matter how much some people disdain them, there is just no getting around the fact that they are a useful marketing tool for wineries and wine distributors globally - something that can easily be communicated across borders and language barriers, where marketing one's brands and wine education is very complex for a winery with limited resources.

Jim, I do hope you enjoy your glass of wine at the end of the day, but do, please do, keep up your good work!