Due to their wedding, Mouna and Andreas gave me one of the best cultural experiences of my life, which I will never forget. The wedding was in Niamey, the capital of Niger, a landlocked country located in Western Africa. This was my first time in Africa and I was very excited for that, a continent with such a vast history and culture, with so many different landscapes and one of the most intact continents of the world.

Very differently from the European weddings, which usually last for half a day, celebrations of this weeding lasted for three days and four nights. It started on Wednesday with a welcome dinner for all the family and friends of the bride and groom. After eating very tasty and sometimes spicy local food and drinking a red iced tea called bissap (which I loved and brought some with me to Portugal), we started pushing the groom to the pool. For big surprise of the locals, but as expect when you start playing these games, the night finished with the groom, one of our friends and me in the pool, with no time for undressing.

On the next day, Thursday, there was a big session to paint hands and feet of the ladies, which special emphases on the painting the bride would show when meeting the groom after the religious ceremony. On the other side, men had a more relaxed day, with plenty of time to swim and play in the pool.

On Friday was the religious ceremony. As this was a Muslim wedding, I was eager to see and know how all this would be. There were plenty of differencies, starting by the dressing code: everybody on local dresses. But beside that, as the bride’s mum is a Tuareg descent, all the young men, groom’s father included, were dressing the famous turban. The turban is used by the Tuareg for fending off the desert sand and protecting the head and face from very high temperatures and strong sunlight. We were far away from the desert but to preserve local culture, we were with a turban on. The religious ceremony itself, which lasted for around 30 minutes, counted with the participation of sultans from all around Niger. Surprisingly for me, neither the bride or the groom attended to it. The bride was at her parents house and the groom in another house of the family, both located in the street where the ceremony was happening. Also women were not allowed to participate, they were all at bride’s parents house, listing to the canticles through the loudspeakers installed under the tent where all men were. The pinnacle of the ceremony happens when representatives from groom’s family, bride’s family and church discuss the dowry groom’s family would pay for marrying the bride. In the end, Andreas paid a symbolic amount for Mouna and received cows and goats from the Mouna family as gifts. It was a great deal for him!

On the next day, Saturday, and next-to-last day of our visit, was the civil ceremony, presided by Niamey’s Mayor. There I was feeling at home, as this was similar of what we are used to have in Europe. Also the dressing code was similar to ours, suits for men and long dresses for ladies. And right after leaving the house and going to the hotel where the civil wedding would take place, I understood why suit is not very popular in a country with top temperatures of 40º and humidity over 90% all the time. The party ended late in the night, or better said, early in the morning, after sunrise. It seemed hard to keep dancing all night long, but in such a nice hotel over the Niger river, hanging out with happy people that imbue you of energy, you never feel tired.

And it’s because of these nice, always smiling and happy people that I fell in love with Africa. I want to go back soon, to Niger and to other African countries. For the love of Andreas and Mouna!

Here you can find photos of all the trip to Niger. If there is something you would like leave a comment.

Oscar

For the first time I tasted a bottle from Quinta do Rei, currently owned by Messias, which is located in front of our vineyard Quinta Vale d’Agodinho. Quinta do Rei is contiguous to Quinta do Cachão and was bought in 1958 from Gonzalez Byass. Latter Messias family incorporated Quinta do Rei in Quinta do Cachão and no longer bottling Quinta do Rei, making this bottles even rarer. In my opinion, the stars of the tasting were Croft, Noval, Dow’s and Delaforce. Croft and Delaforce were both elegant and delicate while Noval and Dow’s presented a nice body and structure.

At the end of the tasting some of the attendees said that Vintage 1960 wouldn’t be worth the price you pay for that (around 120 eur a bottle). This may be true, and although some of the bottles didn’t show well, others were worth each cent we paid for that!

Oscar

Last week, while I was in London, I went to an event organized by Viniportugal to promote Portuguese wines. Its name is 50 Great Portuguese Wines and it goes on its 5th edition. Since 2005 Viniportugal has been inviting, every year, a wine expert to taste and select 50 wines that he or she considers best represents wines from Portugal. This year the selected master was Sarah Ahmed. During the tasting I asked Sarah to share with us what she forecasts for the Portuguese wines for the next years.

Oscar

P.S. I had also the pleasure to meet Judy Kendrick and her crew at the tasting! Judy rocks!

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Next February 12th many producers will fly to Germany to show up in other tasting co organized by the IVDP and by the World of Port, which is run by Axel Probst, other Port lover.

That said, If you live in Germany and specially near by Leverkusen, do not miss this chance to taste many Vintages from the so special harvest of 2007. I will be there for a toast and for a lot of fun!

Oscar

I made a video showing my experience and I also asked Rodolfo Tristão, Coffee Sommelier of Nespresso presenting live this idea. Take a look and leave your comments!

Oscar

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Yesterday Quevedo attended a tasting of Vintage Port 2007 for the Portuguese press and trade in the Palácio da Bolsa, in Porto. The tasting, organized  by the IVDP, by the Porto Wine Producers Association and by Essência do Vinho, got together around 50 producers only for tasting their Vintage Ports 2007.

I had already tasted some of these Vintages but yesterday I had a broader view of what the year was for the other producers. I got surprised by the consistency among almost all of them. Some lovely wines. Different styles of winemaking are pretty evident but the quality is generally high. Very high. And I am glad for that. It is good for Quevedo, it is good for the producers and it is good for the consumers. It is a positive-sum game and we should all be happy and proud of these wines.

Check the video and you will see what were my preferred Vintages. Oh, and my teeth are already back to its natural white color!

Oscar

From 9am to 6pm GMT all the steps of a harvesting in the Douro will be broadcast, including the fortification of must for Port Wine. At 5pm there will be an audio connection with the conference room in the BWT, where Ryan Opaz, from Catavino, will be speaking about Social Media in Action.

The S. João da Pesqueira’s Town Hall is providing the technology and video experts for the realization of the live streaming to the BTW. This last one offers the  opportunity to on/off traders and press visitors, to taste small productions of exclusive wines. Quevedo has great expectations about this wine fair as a way to find an importer or distributor for its wines and Ports in the United Kingdom.

After launching the first Port Wine producer blog, Quevedo (which currently grows 250 acres of wines and 50 acres of organic olive trees in S. João da Pesqueira, Douro, Portugal) reinforces its commitment with new technologies using them as a direct and interactive way to communicate with the wine lovers, becoming the first Port producer to stream live the harvest.

We would like to invite you to visit our winery and our vineyards in the Douro valley.

One of the most interesting moments of Vindouro is the Port Wine auction. This year Quevedo sent a bottle of our recently launched Quevedo Colheita 1992. Besides our Port, only three more bottles out of 16 were still on the market. All the rest were Ports never commercialized or sold out. The prices were generally high and the buyers were almost all local. It probably shows that there was an emotional interest in some of the bottles regardless its price. Here is the list of the Ports at auction and the respective prices:

The harvest is now starting and during this time of the year, as expected, we have more people around visiting the Douro. One of the very last were Ema and Nuno from Magna Casta, a Portuguese wine blog. We could not talk very long, but hopefully they will come back soon!

Oscar

I have been spending this week making wine tastings in different places of the country. It is my first time in Denmark and I am having a great time. The interesting part of the trip occurred yesterday in Oksbøl (a small town in the West of Denmark), where took place a wine tasting of American and Port wines for the members of the local wine club.

There were 100 hundred people at the room when I challenged them to pronounce my last name, Quevedo, loud with lot of emotion.  You can´t imagine how happy I felt when I hear them pronouncing it correctly. Yes, Quevedo can! I was almost in tears. Here is the video made by Elizabeth Rice of DFV Wines.

Dan, the very nice manager of the local supermarket Super Brugsen, gave a bottle of our White Port for the person who could better pronounce Quevedo. I´ll soon post his photo. I got it, here is the photo of Karsten Hjorth Soerensen.

Thank you Dan and Colin (Head of West Denmark Tourism) for organizing of the tasting.

Oscar