Colares is a traditionally prestigious wine region situated on Portugal's central Atlantic coast. It is famous as much for its sandy, phylloxera-free soils and ungrafted vines as the robust, tannic red wine it produces from the area's Ramisco grape.
Located at the southwestern tip of the Lisboa region, Colares and its vines lie within two miles of the Atlantic Ocean. The nearby Cabo de Roca point is the westernmost point in continental Europe, described by Portugal's greatest poet Luis de Camoes as onde a terra se acaba e o mar começa ("where the land ends and the sea begins"). The coastal DOC is just northwest of the city of Lisbon, and the more popular Alenquer and Bucelas DOCs lie inland, sheltered by the Serra de Montejunto hills.
Soil is key in Colares. The sandy chão de areia topsoils here, and the heavy chão rijo clays which underpin them, are quite literally fundamental to Colares' viticulture. Wines made from vines planted on any other soil type cannot be legally sold as Colares. The sandy topsoils famously saved the vines here from the ravages of the phylloxera epidemic that decimated the European vineyard in the late nineteenth century – phylloxera mites cannot live in sand or other loose-grained soils. Consequently, the need has never arisen to graft the vines here onto phylloxera-resistant rootstocks, a practice now standard in every almost every wine region on earth. Ramisco then, which grows only here in Colares, may well be the only Vitis vinifera variety never to have been subject to vine-grafting.
Although free-draining and easily workable, these sands are naturally very loose-structured, and are particularly poor at storing water and nutriment. Unseen beneath them, however, are the chão rijo clays. These perform a critical function, providing a firm medium that both anchors the vines and provides them with essential nutrients.
When it comes to planting new vines here, the sand is dug away, right down to the clay layer, where the young vine is planted. Over the following few years the sand is gradually replaced (together with a complement of nutrient-rich manure), until the surface is level again, at which point the vines are considered ready for production.
Proximity to the ocean, and all of its temperature-moderating effects, is considered a distinct benefit in many wine regions around the world (e.g. Bordeaux and Margaret River). However, the Atlantic batters the Portuguese coastline with gusty, salt-laden winds. The traditional dried-reed fences which surround Colares' vineyards are a centuries-old solution to this problem. The vines are also subject to heavy autumn rains, which sweep in across the Atlantic and can devastate entire harvests if they arrive before the grapes are picked. Were it not for the fast-draining nature of the sandy soils, these rains would make viticulture impractical in Colares.
In modern times, Colares and its wines occupy just a tiny niche in Portugal's forward-looking wine industry. The vineyard area is just a fraction of what it once was, and the strong, tannic wines are a far cry from the rich, opulent styles preferred by the majority of modern wine consumers. Trading on its history, and its unusual terroir (not to mention its reputation as a source of exceptional red wines), the region has enjoyed a minor renaissance in the early 21st Century.
