Valle de Passos, Reserva Tinto

Over the last few weeks, our offers have focused mostly on lighter, brighter styles of red wine, so today we’re going in a different direction—namely, the unapologetically bold, dark, and concentrated direction (let’s face it: some folks like big reds all year round, and we need to speak to that constituency).Further, today’s red from upstart producer Valle de Passos is a prime example of the world-class—yet comically/tragically undervalued—dry red wine coming out of Portugal these days. Today’s 2014 isn’t merely ‘big’: It’s a serious, terroir-expressive red wine that would fetch a much higher price if anyone knew where (and how special) Trás-os-Montes is. Situated “beyond the mountains” in northernmost Portugal, with similarly granitic, schistous soils to those of the nearby Douro, this is a region to keep a close eye on: As in the remote, vertiginous river valleys in Galicia, just across the border in Spain, investment and talent is finding its way back to overlooked precincts like T