Wine & Food

A dish from the Beira mountains shows most clearly what red Dão is good for in the cooking pot. For Chanfana, old goat or lamb is braised for hours in red wine, garlic, and bay leaf, traditionally in a black clay pot from a wood-fired oven. The wine in the pot is usually the same one that later ends up in the glass. Dão has enough acidity to soften the tough meat, and enough tannin to stand up to its strong flavor.

Cheese calls for a different logic. Queijo Serra da Estrela is made from sheep's milk, curdled with wild cardoon thistle instead of rennet. It ages in exactly the granite villages where Dão also grows — Gouveia, Seia, Nelas, Mangualde. Sliced young or aged, a simple red Dão suits it well. In its softest, almost spoonable form, though, it wants the acidity and fruit of Encruzado, or the cheese alone feels heavy.

In autumn come the chestnuts from the mountain forests, roasted over an open fire and usually drunk with a young, uncomplicated red, since their light sweetness and the smoke from the fire suit a wine that hasn't seen much oak itself. A mature Garrafeira, by contrast, would overwhelm the chestnut's delicate toasted notes.

Wild boar calls for a different wine altogether. From the same forests comes the most powerful wine in the house. A Garrafeira with years in barrel has enough tannin and enough fruit to hold its own against the intense game flavor. A young, light Dão simply disappears next to it.

If you want to remember one rule, take this one: the tougher the meat and the longer it's cooked, the more tannin and acidity the wine alongside it can handle. In the Dão there's plenty of both, as soon as you pull the right vintage from the cellar.