How baga has beat the odds by staying true to character

There are many ways that baga, a grape of northern Portugal, refuses to be neatly categorized.

Producers within its home region of Bairrada stubbornly adhere to making wines that are 100 percent baga.

Their dedication to a single varietal runs counter to the overall esprit de corps for winemaking in Portugal, where the blend’s the thing.

A shared commitment by Bairrada’s winemakers to carve their own path within Portugal’s traditions is deeply ingrained. It can be traced back to efforts like the founding of the Escola Prática de Viticultura da Bairrada, established in 1887, to promote the region.

Given that baga, as a grape, is rather difficult to grow – and something of an acquired taste as a wine – the perseverance of Bairrada’s producers is all the more endearing.

Part of the allure to baga’s story is how the grape, and its advocates, have continually beat the odds by staying true to the variety’s unique character.

To Blend or Not to Blend

Historically, blending – using different grape varieties to make a wine – was a way of hedging bets against the harvest.

There’s unpredictability to any growing season. Different grapes have their own resilience to the changes that can happen year by year, from temperature swings or drought to the potential arrival of a pest or sprout of a disease.

A more romantic rationale for blending is that it’s about harmonizing and creating something where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The wine world has always included regions fascinated (maybe even obsessed) with single varietal winemaking, such as all pinot noir or all chardonnay from legendary plots in Burgundy.

In Foot Trodden: Portugal and the Wines That Time Forgot (2021), Simon J. Woolf and Ryan Opaz argue that a consumer preference for single varietal wines is relatively recent.

It gained traction in the 1970s and 1980s, as New World Wines, those coming from the U.S., Australia, South America, and South Africa, grew in popularity.

These then-upstart wines tended to be labelled by the grape varietal. The labelling choice reflected both the liberties and challenges facing New World winemakers.

On the one hand, New World winemakers had the freedom to plant prestige grapes like cabernet sauvignon anywhere. They were unhampered by the centuries of tradition from the Old World, mainly Western Europe, that intertwined certain grapes with specific growing regions. These traditions were reinforced and codified with the introduction of labelling systems in the 20th century that based naming conventions on geographic regions.

On the other hand, working in unchartered territory meant that the pioneer New World wines lacked market caché. A bottle labelled by the grape would be more recognizable to consumers, and a single grape would be easier to sell than something even more mysterious like a “red blend.”

Woolf, a wine writer, and Opaz, who runs tours in Portugal and has 15 years of experience writing about wine, teamed up to write Foot Trodden as an ode to the country’s independent winemakers. They also explore why Portuguese wines tend to be overlooked. The shift toward single varietal wines, they contend, has contributed to the perception of Portugal, and its blends, as passé.

Power in Numbers

Part of Portugal’s affinity for blends could be connected to its sheer abundance. By most counts, Portugal is home to some 230 grape varieties.

In Foot Trodden, Woolf and Opaz cite a 2017 document from the Portuguese government in the Catálogo Nacional de Variedades de Videira (National Catalogue of Vine Varieties – or NCW) that calls the 230 more likely a minimum. The article estimates that there are many more varieties as yet unidentified.

Karen MacNeil describes Portugal in The Wine Bible (2001) as punching above its weight class, when it comes to the country’s bounty of grapes. At 370 miles long and 125 miles wide, Portugal is smaller than the state of Kentucky but “carpeted with vineyards.”

Portugal is also home to many rare and ancient varieties, MacNeil writes, which were likely brought by the Phoenicians directly from the Middle East.

This plethora of grapes has been preserved within Portugal partly thanks to the tradition of field blending, the mingling of different grape varieties within the same plot.

Woolf and Opaz describe field blending as best known within Portugal’s Douro region, with its history of making Port. Field blending is also commonly found in the neighboring Dão as well as the older vineyards of Alentejo and Lisboa, they note.

While field blends are not unique to Portugal, Woolf and Opaz write, their setup is often more complex than elsewhere. Centenarian vineyards with 40-plus interplanted varieties are not uncommon in the Douro, they state.

Their anecdote from Richard Mayson, a wine writer and editor focused on Portugal and Spain, best sums up the spirit behind the vineyard potpourri of Portuguese field blends.

Mayson has written that a small-scale grower in the Douro asked, “What’s in your vineyards?” is likely to shrug and reply, “não sei” (I don’t know).

The laissez-faire attitude reflects how little interest there is to abandon field blends in favor of planting more fashionable grape varieties.

The costs would be prohibitive for many growers. Portugal’s geographic landscape and economic history have combined to create the country’s patchwork of vineyards with tens of thousands of small, individual growers. Amateur and weekend growers continue to be common, Woolf and Opaz write.

There is also the romance. Woolf and Opaz describe the enduring belief in field blend vineyards as creating more complex wines and giving them “an indefinable sense of authenticity.”

With history, tradition, and modern economics all on the side of preserving Portugal’s field blends, it makes Bairrada and its dedication to baga as a single varietal wine all the more distinctive.

The Diamond in the Rough

Bairrada has been producing wine since the 10th century. More than once, it seems, baga has been on the ropes and at risk of being little more than a viticultural footnote.

To begin, there is the marvel that baga became the hometown hero for Bairrada.

There is some skepticism that baga is native to the region. Portuguese viticulturalist Dr. Rolando Faustino suggests baga is more likely original to the Dão.

However baga came to be planted in Bairrada, the grape and the land are far from being a match made in heaven.

Cooler, as well as humid from sharing a border with Portugal’s Atlantic coast, Bairrada’s climate lends itself much more to the formation of the clay soils that are the region’s namesake. Bairrada comes from the word barro, Portuguese for clay.

This same moisture in the air can lead to vineyard threats like mildew and rot. While baga may be resistant to powdery mildew, it is susceptible to rot.

As wine writer and critic Jancis Robinson notes in The Oxford Companion to Wine (fourth edition), the best sites for baga are warmer, with better-drained calcareous-clay soils.

Another obstacle for growing baga is Bairrada’s early autumn rains that can dampen harvests for the late-ripening, thin-skinned grape.

Baga is also a high-yielding grape, which poses a challenge to winemakers. Baga needs to be carefully pruned to curb its natural abundance to grow fewer grape bunches of higher quality over large quantities of fruit.

Things don’t get much easier with baga for winemakers after the harvest, when work moves to the cellar.

As a wine, baga has a tendency toward high acidity and high tannin. It takes a certain kind of skill – not to mention willingness – to craft these qualities into something pleasing and reveal the diamond in the rough.

Wines that achieve it are compared to big-hitters like those made from nebbiolo in Italy’s Piemonte or nerello mascalese in Sicily’s Mount Etna.

The Underdog

Baga enthusiasts who champion the grape, and its potential, have had to overcome several setbacks.

In the 20th century, Bairrada struggled to gain recognition as a region in its own right. It was first classified as part of the larger Beira Interior and did not have its own DOC status.  

Much earlier in its history, Bairrada was dealt a blow when Portugal’s prime minister, the Marquis de Pombal, created the demarcation for Port within the Douro in 1756.

Pombal’s measures went beyond limiting the zone where Port could be made. They included quality controls, such as banning manure as fertilizer, in an effort to lower yields, and eliminating elderberry juice, which had been increasingly used as an additive to mask defects in the grapes.  

In Bairrada, Pombal ordered that vineyards be uprooted. In the early 1700s, baga was being blended with Port or marketed as Port. The edict was enforced for a few decades. Time has done little to erase the memory.

In Foot Trodden, Woolf and Opaz again turn to Richard Mayson, who describes the lingering effects from Pombal’s edict as, “[Pombal’s] sleight of hand has never been forgotten, and growers in the region still bear a grudge against those in authority.”

Despite the hard knocks, the region has persisted. Bairrada’s became its own DOC in 1979.

The timing may be one of the luckiest breaks in baga’s history. Luís Pato, the ultimate baga and Bairrada ambassador, had entered the wine scene and would release his first bottle the next year using the Bairrada label.

A New Era

Pato’s reputation, both within Bairrada and the wider wine world, is based as much on his personal achievements and unwavering commitment to baga as it is to his dynamic personality.

A chemical engineer by training, Pato brought scientific rigor and a spirit of experimentation when he started his winemaking in the 1970s. These qualities made him an outlier at the time but seen today as a game-changer.  

Unsatisfied in accepting the status quo, Pato sought changes that would optimize the production process and improve the quality of his wines.

Pato’s modernizing techniques included destemming the grapes, a move that Woolf and Opaz describe in Foot Trodden as a “no-brainer for today’s winemakers” but contributed to Pato’s early maverick casting.

Grape stems contain tannin, which is mostly a textural sensation rather than a flavor. Tannins also contribute structure and give wines aging power.

By removing the stems from the fruit before fermentation, Pato eliminated an additional source of tannin and relied instead on baga’s own naturally tannic character. The result is a wine that is slightly softer, plusher, and easier to drink younger while honoring one of baga’s distinct features.

Pato’s efforts were recognized outside Bairrada rather early. In 1984, Pato presented his 1980 baga in London at a professional tasting and received high marks. Some tasters proclaimed Pato’s bottle as better than more established producers.

In 1987, wine critic Charles Metcalfe wrote about Pato’s wine and invited him to be a judge at the 1990 International Wine Challenge competition in London. Pato called it “my tasting university.” He went on to judge at the competition for over 20 years.

The position is one way that Pato has carried out his ambitions past his own label. A driving force of his mission has always been to showcase baga’s potential to make top-tier wine and to promote Bairrada as the place where baga can reach its fullest expression.

In his role as figurehead, Pato has the requisite charisma to play the part, matching his exuberance with a down-to-earth quality. What comes across is a craftsman and a statesman who takes the work – not himself – seriously.

The curiosity of Pato, the scientist, and the playful side to his personality is best known from him striking Einstein’s comic pose of sticking out his tongue.

The image was first used when he created the label for the 2010 Pato Rebel, a blend of primarily baga with some touriga nacional and bical to show baga could lend itself to something soft and aromatic. 

While Pato has developed blends and produces a full portfolio that includes white wines, sparkling wines, and sweet wines, baga is always at the heart of his work.

In 2003, Pato protested changes in the regulations from the Comissão Vitivinícola da Bairrada that could shift the region’s focus away from baga by declassifying all of his wines. The move showed Pato’s willingness to market his wines under the broader Vinho Regional Beiras category rather than use a diluted Bairrada label.

The Future of Baga

Pato’s passion for promoting baga is shared these days by a small group of quality-focused winemakers who belong to Baga Friends.

Members of Baga Friends include Pato’s daughter Filipa Pato and neighboring Quinta das Bágeiras, where Mário Sérgio practices a similar approach to winemaking as Pato. There’s an open-mindedness and energy from experimentation, but the underpinning philosophy is the sense of tradition.

Despite the inroads made by leaders like Pato and Sérgio, baga in the 21st century continues to be something of an underdog.

The Comissão Vitivinícola Regional do Dão (CVR Dão) has removed baga as an authorized variety, despite the grape being plentiful in the region’s older vineyards.

Within Bairrada, in 2014, plantings of had been reduced to 40 percent, down from 90 percent.

Still, if the track record shows anything, baga’s story has often been one of down but never out.

Photo credit: Wines of Portugal, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons