Max Graham, Founder
St Martin’s Day is a moment when winegrowers around the world raise a glass to a good harvest. With its blend of pagan and religious festas, Portugal is no exception. And for wine lovers, there’s no better place to be than Vidigueira in the Alentejo, the spiritual home of vinho de talha, beautiful handcrafted clay pots that have shaped Portugal’s winemaking identity for centuries. Dia de São Martinho is the day the talhas are tapped, a simple yet symbolic act as the first wine of the year flows. Across Alentejo, it’s marked by music, laughter and the comforting scent of roasting chestnuts drifting through the cool air.
As November arrives, the air in Portugal holds a gentle promise of change. The first rains have fallen, the vines rest, and for a few golden days the sun returns, what locals call Verão de São Martinho, or St Martin’s Summer. At Bar Douro, we cherish this moment because it captures everything we love about Portuguese culture: warmth, generosity and great wine. The smell of chestnuts roasting over open fires takes me straight back to childhood. Those memories inspired Bar Douro from the very start.
Until recently, you could only taste talha wines in rustic Alentejo tascas lined with clay pots or in the home cellars of those who kept the tradition alive. Today, this ancient craft is finding new audiences and we’ve got you covered with a selection of Portugal’s best talha wines right here in London.
The technique of fermenting wine in clay amphorae goes back over 8,000 years to ancient Georgia. In Portugal’s Alentejo, these vessels are called talhas: large, free-standing pots fitted with a tap near the base. The porous clay allows the wine to breathe, lending a gentle earthiness and texture that stainless steel or oak can’t match.
Fermented with minimal intervention, vinho de talha expresses the purest sense of fruit and place, whites glowing gold with spice and citrus, reds marked by fine tannins and a whisper of terracotta dust or beeswax. I’ll never forget tasting my first talha wine in Vidigueira, poured straight from beneath a thin layer of olive-oil seal.
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