Portugal in Pictures: Stainless Steel Tanks

Snooth Wine Search:

I've rubbed them in Alsace, stroked them in South Africa, walked passed them in Bordeaux and enjoyed a large wine tasting surrounded by some Dalek-like versions in Portugal. They are still boring though.

You can understand why a wine-producer wants to show off the cleanliness of their winery, the mammoth financial investment in these fermentation tanks, but really they are the dullest things to make appropriate appreciative noises over. You know what... unless you specifically ask not one winery takes you out into the vineyard. I'd much rather compare the soils of the vineyards, the canopy/pruning/ground cover techniques and so on than look at another bloody stainless steel tank. (Although sometimes....)

I have to say that the various producers in Alsace - where I specifically asked to view the vines - were more than accommodating. To a man, Domaine Bernhard-Reibel, Domaine Frederic Mochel, Andre Pfister and the intense Marc Kreydenweiss were more than proud to tramp through their holdings.

Sadly, not so in Portugal. None of the producers we visited during the European Wine Bloggers Conference took us out to the vines; perhaps I wasn't vocal enough prior to the visit!

Stainless Steel Tanks: integral to the moden winemaking process but as dull as a really dull, dull thing to look at more than once...

These lovely specimens are at Herdade do Esporao, they do make for fine 'industrial' style abstract photographs I suppose. And they do make very nice wines there...