Wine with Leslie: Portugal has easy-drinking reds and fragrant whites at all price ranges
The best in Portugese wines is the order of business in today's column.
Fadó fadó, just after my first year in college, I spent the summer working in a five-star hotel in Southern Germany as a dishwasher. Not the most salubrious of jobs but the chefs made sure I was well fed (I tasted lobster and venison for the first time), and I made great friends with a bunch of Portuguese trainee teachers who were working in the hotel as chamber maids for the summer.
The hotel was mainly staffed by students and trainees it seemed so there was a party every week to wish someone goodbye. It was always the Irish and the Portuguese left at the end of the night, talking, smoking, and drinking until the small hours. The girls had found a shop that sold Portuguese wines so when not drinking the local Rothaus beers it was juicy Portuguese wine that fuelled our parties. I still love the wines, and the affinity between the Irish and the Portuguese is evident on every visit I’ve made. I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about as droves of us go there on holiday every year.
