450: António Maçanita on the Past and Future of Portuguese Wine

I'll Drink to That! Wine Talk

Levi Dalton

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4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2018

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

António Maçanita is involved with several wine projects throughout Portugal, including Fitapreta in the Alentejo, Maçanita Vinhos in the Douro Valley, and the Azores Wine Company on the Azores Islands.

António discusses the rapid change that is happening on the island of Pico, as hundreds of hectares of vineyard are being replanted after over a century of decline. He explains the winemaking history of the area, and points to the reasons why there is a resurgence in interest in grape vines on Pico, an island in the Azores. António also uses his knowledge of old texts to provide commentary on the changes. He further discusses the Alentejo region, and the winemaking history of that zone, while detailing the characteristics of some of that area's signature grape varieties. And António divulges the unorthodox approach that he is taking to winemaking in the Douro Valley of Portugal. This interview provides both an overview of important Portuguese wine regions, and an analysis of how they have changed over time.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'll drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the Beverage Business.
0:06.7	I'm Levy Dalton.
0:07.7	I'm Erin Scala and here's our show today. Oh, Antonio Masanita of Fita Preta, Masanita Vita Vino and also Azur
0:31.8	Wino. Hello, how are you?
0:33.1	Hello, how are you?
0:34.1	Nice to see you.
0:35.1	Nice to see you.
0:36.1	I know you were born in Lisbon, but you spent some childhood time on islands, right?
0:40.1	Yeah.
0:41.1	My mother is from Alenthesu, so from the south, my father is from the aesors, they met in Lisbon.
0:47.4	So I was, I always lived there, but our vacation place that we spend, you know, two to three months when we could is the Azores.
0:54.8	The Azores is actually a group of violence. Yeah so someone asked an amazing
1:00.8	question the other day was is this new world or old world?
1:04.8	So this idea that it's one-third of the way to the America, so it's the same
1:08.7	latitude as Lisbon and New York. So it's the beginning of the discovery, so it belongs to Portugal, so it's a Portuguese territory, but it has a completely different dynamic volcanic islands.
1:20.0	Traditionally there was wine making in Azores.
1:22.0	Yep.
1:23.0	If we go to 1852 before powdery mildium, before Phylloxera,
1:28.0	Madaira was producing 400,000 liters and the Azores 10 million.
1:32.0	So just to give a bit of a scale, it was an industry, it was something that was happening.
1:37.6	And what kind of wine was that? That's an amazing question because I think even Madhara wine, what kind of wine was Madhara wine?
1:45.2	Because when you see in the books, you read it and they're saying, you know, kind of like a
	...

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