“It was a great campaign,” said Vasco d’Avillez, president of the region’s wine commission. “It combined two things that can’t always be combined: the quality of the grapes and the quantity. Since we’d just had two years in which we produced a little less than in a normal year, we needed more quantity.”
He cited the fact that the year was drier than average while precipitation fell at the right time as the explanation for “the best wines of the past 25 years”.
As a result, the commission said in a statement, exports next year should be well above average, with growth in markets such as Scandinavia, Brazil, the US, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Russia, China and Angola.
Lisbon - formerly known as Estremadura - is Portugal’s second largest wine-producing region by volume, after the Douro. Of total output, 65 percent is exported.
In related news, US magazine ‘Wine Enthusiast’ said that the 2014 white ‘vinho verde’ from Quinta da Aveleda, and Dão wine Pedra Cancela Seleção do Enólogo are among the best seven wines in the world sold in 2015 for under $15 a bottle in a list called “Top 100 Best Buys”.
The Aveleda, produced in Penafiel and sold in the United States for nine dollars came third and the Pedra Cancela, sold there for $11 came in seventh.
The analysis covered 19,500 wines from around the world.