Best Buy: “Conde João Filipe Osorio’s family planted vines at their estate in 1939, when a tornado cleared a hillside that had been forested with pines. The Conde’s wine became legendary, the product of the greatest stand-alone terroir in Portugal, located near Coimbra and 50 miles from any other vineyard of note. João Portugal Ramos, the noted enologist based in Estremoz, married Osorio’s daughter, Tete, and has helped the family expand the vineyard to 150 acres. Portugal Ramos uses a 20-acre parcel planted in 1999 for this blend of Baga and Touriga Nacional, which is pretty astonishing in 2011. Planted on a hillside of schist, they produced a dynamic wine contrasting bright cherry sweetness, deeper blue fruit and savory aromas. It’s rich up front, then restricted by the tannins that guide the wine through a gentle, elegant length of flavor. Those tannins express schist in sanguine and salty notes, like blood sausage, which would make a great match with this wine. In fact, the elegant, ferrous edge of those tannins would match almost any flavorful meat you can through at this wine. It’s hard to believe it’s only $20.”
— Wine & Spirits, Apr 2015

“From the coastal plain of the Beiras, this cool and structured blend of Baga and Touriga Nacional has a fine poise between acidity and sweet berry fruits. It’s a complex, textured wine. Fresh and fruity on the one hand and dark and brooding on the other, it needs time, so drink from 2017.”
— Wine Enthusiast, Nov 2015