It’s not often that you hear a winemaker say things like this about one of their wines:

“We don’t care if people like it or not; if not, I’ll drink it!”

And yet, that’s exactly what Casa Wines’ Helder Cunha said to me earlier this year in New York City, when I worked my way through a tasting of the 50 Great Wines of Portugal as selected by MW/MS Doug Frost. Cunha was talking about a wine he makes from the grape Ramisco; and he feels passionately about the wine, because its made from a grape that is a “dying variety, even in Portugal.”

It’s a rare grape, even in a country known for its small plantings of nearly-extinct grape varieties, and one of which few wine geeks have ever heard. But Cunha seems determined not to let Ramisco go gently into the dark night.

Casa Wines sources its Ramisco fifteen hectares of a vineyard on Portugal’s west coast, a cool and foggy area known as Colares on the southwestern edge of Lisboa. You could, apparently, just about spit into the ocean from the vineyard. These old vines, literally on the beach, aren’t even head-trained. Cunha knew he wouldn’t get much out of them, but viewed them as special and was determined not to let them get grubbed up even as Ramisco became a footnote in a country known for grape variety footnotes.

“Instead of ripping this up,” he told me, “we said, ‘let’s see what happens’…”

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Last month, I was away in Mendoza playing Team America as an International judge in the 2013 Argentina Wine Awards. The AWAs were followed by a seminar that centered on the topic of how to reach “next generation” (Millennial) wine consumers. Today, I’m going to focus on the Trophy results of the AWAs – but believe me, a lot more is coming on the seminar and the topic of Millennial wine drinkers (including thoughts on the wines that my co-judges believed appealed to those next gen drinkers) later.

I’ve two main takeaways from the 2013 AWAs, which are organized by Wines of Argentina (who footed the bill for my participation) and Hunt & Cody (a UK-based team consisting of MW Jane Hunt and Tina Cody):

1) I was self-conscious just to be in the same room as the rest of the judges, all of whom I felt outranked me in terms of tasting prowess, winemaking knowledge and industry accomplishments (I feel privileged to have made fast friends with many of them), and

2) If you try to taste thirteen Gold Medal winning Malbecs in only a few minutes and rank them in order of preference so that a Trophy winner can be determined, you will destroy your palate’s ability to taste anything (including coffee, tea, air, water and, I suspect, crude oil) for several minutes afterward.

The entire process of judging was incredibly fun (despite being shut up in a large conference room in the Diplomatic hotel while the sun was raging all Summer-style outside our windows), and enjoyed seeing the different tolerances we all had as tasters. For example, the UK judges putting up with more Brett (having ben schooled on Old World / Western European wines), the Chinese judge having a higher tolerance for oxidation (because so much international wine reaches her only after it’s been impacted by oxygen), the Argentine winemaking judges almost universally accepting high levels of VA (sought after to smooth out the mouthfeel of those tersely tannic Malbecs).

As for yours truly, receiving boatloads of California samples has taken its toll: I clearly had higher tolerances for oak influences and riper fruits. Sigh…

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Welcome to a rather long-overdue episode of 1WD TV, in which I get geeky with wine maven Doug Frost and give him crap about the wines he *didn’t* pick for his list of Portugal’s 50 Greatest Wines. We express communal love for Madeira, and then Doug sort of disses Napa, but generally shows why he’s one of the most well-regarded wine educators and tasters on the planet. To find out why Doug’s picks are so controversial, fire up the vid!

1WineDudeTV Episode 56: Portugal’s Best Wines? (With Master Wine Geek Doug Frost)

I was able to get a few minutes with Doug when I was a media guest of Wines of Portugal for a lunch event at NYC’s Harold Pratt House, during which Doug and fellow Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein discussed the Top 10 wines from Doug’s list of 50 – which we then tasted paired with various (mostly meat – in fine Portuguese tradition!) courses.  My thoughts/ratings/ramblings on those controversial top ten wine picks are below, after the jump…

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Once again, I’m partnering up with the New York Wine Expo to help try to get some of you lushes to this annual – and seminal – Right Coast tasting event in the Galleria at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in NY.

This is a big shindig, and one in which you’ll have the opportunity to taste 600 (!) or so wines from 200+ (!) global exhibitors. For a bit more of your hard-earned money, there are also optional seminars on topics such as California Pinot Noir, Italian cheeses, and Cool Climate Finger Lakes wines.

But one of you won’t have to shell out their hard-earned money to go to NYWE this year, and many more of you will shell out less than the sticker price!

I’m happy to announce that one lucky 1WD reader will receive a free ticket to the event’s Grand Tasting on either Friday March 1st, 6pm-10pm (an $85 value) or Saturday March 2nd, 1pm-5pm (a $95 value) – it’ll be winner’s choice!

And if you play along and don’t win, fear not – when we announce the winner next week, we’ll also be giving you a discount code that’s good for $15 off Friday and/or Saturday tickets (if ordered on or before Feb. 28, 2013)!

Here’s how it will go down:

• Leave a comment on this post telling us (that’s the royal us), which wines, producers or regions you’re most looking forward to trying at the tasting (here’s a list of who will be pouring) and why. You’ll have until 5PM ET on February 4th, 2013 to leave a comment.
• On February 5th, I will announce a randomly selected winner from the comments, and will also reveal the discount code that can be used for those who didn’t win but still want to save some dough when they purchase tickets.

If you’re planning on going (and you should, as it will give your wine tasting IQ a seriously rapid boost), check out my survival guide for getting through big tasting events alive (Hint: Spit!).

Cheers – and good luck!