Last year, I had a chance to take a trip to Portugal with one of our all-time favorite importers, La Luz Selections. It was the first time I'd gone overseas in almost six years (Covid, baby, & business-building will keep you tethered to a place), and truly, it changed my life. I'd forgotten—or at least deeply buried—the satisfaction I reap in turning on a thousand eyes and opening up a thousand ears to become a vessel of pure observation in a place I know nothing about. Being curious is my job; I've built a career as a writer, reporter, and wine buyer, listening closely and asking questions for the better part of 20 years so I might translate whatever I'm learning about to an audience. Portugal allowed me to become a student again, unencumbered from the day to day framework of running a business.

While there, I met three of the producers from this month's club (and the "Draw" producer earlier this spring in Tenerife), who awoke a kind of delight and curiosity in me that had been dormant for some time. This sounds simple, but was actually quite profound in the course of my education as a wine buyer and educator, but mostly as a human. And for this reason, I give you, a Love Letter to Portugal. It's an easy place to love, deserves its romanticization, and, in my memory, will forever be associated with late-night grilling and vintage champagne, sunset pool parties, and a group of people I'd share a Mercedes bus with for nine days straight anytime.

This club was truly a year in the making. Two of the wines here I tasted last year and committed to on the spot. As soon as they arrived, we put them on our by the glass list and reserved them for this club and for you. —Leslie Pariseau

Quinta da Costa do Pinhão "B-Side" Rosado, Douro Valley, Portugal 2024

Almost exactly a year ago, I sat on a hillside in the Douro Valley eating lunch, feeling wildly lucky to be soaking in a puddle of sun and listening to seventh-generation wine-grower Miguel Morais and his partner Filipa Silva talk about the two-dozen native grape varieties growing in his antique vineyards. Earlier, we'd climbed a hill to visit a plot of wild little bush vines with Morais and legendary winemaker Luis Seabra (see full Seabra treatment below), that demonstrated the insane collaboration between nature and humans—very old vines (some varieties rarer than rare) that yield insanely delicious wines. In the north of Portugal, the Douro is historically known for growing and selling grapes for the big Port houses, which Morais' ancestors did before he returned following a career in civil engineering and enlisted Seabra to help him produce estate wines.

During that lunch, a spread of marinated beans, fresh vegetables, and homemade bread, Silva pulled out a cuvée she'd been working on. Where the wines of the QdCdP label are quite classic, Filipa's project B-Side, born during the pandemic, is a little more free-spirited with labels that mirror the watercolor tattoos encircling her arms. The cold rosé, made from Tinta Francisca and Touriga Nacional grapes, was well-matched to the heat of the day, wonderfully savory with structure that belies its strawberry blush color. Wine for grilling, wine for ruminating, wine for dreaming of that hillside in the Douro.

Quinta do Ermizio "Vinho Verde" Vinho Verde, Portugal 2025

A region in northern Portugal lodged between the Douro and Minho rivers, Vinho Verde carries a certain association of typicity—that it is always light, high-acid, slightly spritzy, and incredibly drinkable. However, like the wines of any region, there's a whole spectrum in Vinho Verde, spanning from light-hearted and lifted to leesy-luscious. This bottling from Quinta do Ermizio, a producer brought in by staunch naturalist importer José Pastor, adheres to the former quality. This is one of my favorite pool wines. It's got zippy effervescence to please every overheated guest, has correct agriculture, and is an incredible value. Made from Loureiro and Trajadura grapes, it's a simple recipe—organic farming, hand-harvesting, fermented in stainless, aged, bottled → straight to your patio.

Favonius "Naturally Sparkling Rosé" Nazaré, Portugal 2025

On the first day of my trip with La Luz, we ventured outside of Lisbon to a vineyard dancing with morning sun to meet winemaker Rodrigo Martins who almost immediately popped the trunk of his car to reveal a picnic of freshly fried croquettes (made by his mother), a spread of Portuguese cheeses, and a lineup of wines that started with this fuchsia-pink pet-nat.

Located in Nazaré, a place famous for its mythical wave chased by ambitious surfers, Favonius is named for the roman god of the desirable western winds from the Atlantic. It's a project from Martins and his winemaking partner Pedro Cabanita, which showcases the vivid quality of Lisboa, made entirely naturally. This pet-nat (one fermentation, finished in the bottle to capture CO2) is chalky with a little bit of Flintstone vitamin and raspberry seed zing. A totally immediate pleasure, it's one of the wines that I promised to buy as soon as it was available to us. And voilá. Here it is for you and for me.

Luís Seabra Vinhos "Xisto Ilimitado" Tinto, Douro Valley, Portugal 2021

There are few people in Portugal with as much influence in wine today as Luis Seabra. Having worked for Niepoort, one of the country's biggest players, for many years, Seabra changed the mindset of a fortified-dependent wine economy to terroir-driven still wines. He now produces his own wines while shepherding some of the most interesting emerging winemakers in the Portugal including QdCdP and Saiñas, two labels we carry at the shop. Dubbed "the George Clooney of Portugal" by Kiki Bembry and John House, owners of La Luz, Seabra was a consistent presence throughout our time in the country, popping up with his wife Natalia Jessa of Vinhos Gota, cracking a magnum of this or that, holding forth on the soil type of a field of mençia, and then again while I was in Tenerife this spring, showing the full lineup of his stunning wines alongside Jean-Marc Roulot and Ramiro Ibañez.

The Xisto Ilimitado Tinto is meant to translate the schist-laden terroir of the Douro with a selection of seven grape varieties from across three sub-zones. It's all bramble shadows, mineral freshness, and dried black pepper zip. A slippery slope of an introduction to a producer whose wines are meant to age and will get inside your head. Look forward to seeing his Xisto Ilimitado Branco on our by the glass list next week, and as many other cuvées we can get our hands on.

Azores Wine Co. "Arinto dos Açores" Branco, Azores Islands, Portugal 2022

One-thousand miles off the coast of Portugal, the Azores is a wild archipelago of rock and salt spray, these conditions amplified on the island of Pico where fewer than 10 commercial producers dare to make wine. There is zero soil here on the land that the three partners in the Azores Wine Co. cultivate. It is pure volcanic basalt fewer than 100 feet from the Atlantic ocean; the wines grow literally out of rocks. Brutalized by wind and salt water, the vines of Pico, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have adapted to the harsh climate, helped by ancient hand-built rock walls that enclose them.

The Arinto dos Açores was born of winemaker Antonio Maçinita's quest to re-discover and preserve indigenous grape varieties that were at risk of being lost from this earth. Entirely distinct from its mainland cousin, the Açores' Arinto is as mineral and maritime as you might expect but with a luxe texture thanks to extended time on the lees and malolactic fermentation. Having tasted the entire range in the Canaries this spring, I found the wines to be so much more joyful than I'd have expected from their terroir, built to age, I would invest in these wines for their mixture of cerebral poeticism and immediate delight. (PS: we have a whole Azores set at the shop, including our new favorite producer, Entre Pedras.)