Maisons Marques & Domaines USA’s Post

Transcript

Today I'm gonna take y'all somewhere else with this wine and hip hop thing. Now y'all see me skipping all over the globe. Believer, I always wanted to take y'all with me. As the global ambassador for Wanna Hip Hop Culture, my mission has been to find different ways for my people to connect with wine on our terms. So I'm tapping it with my wine plugs all over the globe to bring y'all these wine and hip hop connections direct from the source. This episode takes us to Porto, Portugal. The wine hair has always held a special place with my heart and with hip hop. So I linked up with one of The Pioneers that are reaching Ramos Pinto to get the lay of the land. I hit my guy on the ground, My tour guide for this trip, George Rosas, president of Ramos Pinto. So how did how did your family come to own all of this? Well, it started with my great grandfather. When he was only 20 years old, he decided to found his own company. His father had a Quinta not far from here. For several generations we have been running the company. At the beginning he started by using the wines produced in his father Quinta. So my great great grandfather Quinta and then he decided to buy this Quinta in the 1919. Know about 100 years ago, so today we own more than 500 acres of vineyards. The well I think would say one of the main strengths of our companies the fact that we produce our wines with grapes coming from our own vineyards. We have the highest self-sufficient ratio in terms of grapes which we believe it's very important because when you make wines if the fruit is not good, the wine won't be good. So the only way we believe. The only way to have exceptional grapes is to control your own vineyards. Ramos Pinto is one of the most prolific wine producers in Portugal, a country known for two styles of wine port. As well as there's still wines from the Douro River Valley. The artist I feel most represents my time here has been nice. The wine might be from Portugal, but it puts me back in a New York State of mind. Growing up in New York, all of the OG's always drank Port, but they had no idea what they were drinking. Port is a fortified wine, meaning a spirit is added to stop the fermentation. This preserves the wines natural sweetness, creates its unique flavor profile, complex flavors, and higher alcohol content. A major similarity with Nas and Port is also its age ability. Naz. Get on people's top five list for 30 years is still out and still active due to the stop fermentation. Port age is extremely well so you know that Ramos Pinto seller was crazy. And and so this is. Vintage Port rhodies in half water in Magnus in bottles. So today we are able to do a vertical tasting of calories or terrigenesis, you know, so we can understand understand the evolution of the color, the aromas of each graph, for instance. But Hawker when it's young doesn't have a lot of color, but with time, it keeps better the color than the other. So it's very interesting this and we are the only ones that. And do this. So we are proud of this because we really have the feeling that we have participate evolution of the thorough in in increasing the quality of the road because the reality is that for today is much better than it was 30 years ago, 20 years ago. One of the most fundamental parts of port is that it's a blend making wine with grapes that originate in Portugal such as Touriga Nacional or Touriga Franca, as well as several others. Wine makers are challenge to make it consistent style year after year. I joined their master blender Anna to get some insight on how she curates the Ramo signature style especially the famous 20 year Tawny. Tawny port is a non vintage wife with different different years. It's a blend. We blend and blend and blend all the time different ones to achieve the final product and it should taste the same in 10 years. Primal 20 years time and has the particular style. Now, you might think that was easy, but Anna was about to put your boy to the test. Alright, so I'm about to try my very first blend. You know, I'm I deejayed a little bit coming up, so this is a little. This is a similar thing for me, but alright, so now I have my base right and I am looking to recreate. This. OK got you. So taste the 20, then taste the base to ensure the junk. Now for the moment of truth. Could I bring my mixing skills to the tasting room? I don't think my blends quite right. I think the ending blend was a little better, but I'm not mad at it. I can see why I went wrong. I don't think I have enough punch in here. I need a bit more city so I might not be quite there, but I got one more shot before my papers graded. It's time to break out the cheat code. Let's try this with the the coherent 1900 base. Well, that's the secret, secret weapon in this one. This works a lot better, but I'm I'm interested to hear what the masses think about this. All right, all right, let's give my I'm get my test graded right now. You have some hiding skills. You know, look, you know. When it comes to the lab, you know. Yes, this is this is very close to 20 years. Wow. They need to to a little bit time to be adjusted to each other, all the wines. But yes, this is the way I have to say congratulations. Thank you really, you know, because it's really, you have done really good. I just had great teachers. That's that's really all it is. I can't take any of the credit, you know. After finishing up my blend, we headed up the Dural River to dive even deeper into the history of Portugal. They're all valleys, the oldest appellation in the borough in the world. And the thorough is like a a freeway because in the old days it was very difficult to come here by land. So the easiest way to transport the wine from here to portal where we have our sellers both by boat. But four to five wins is really only a part of Portugal's wine history. There's still winds from Maduro actually predate port and a possibly. Even more important, but I didn't know that until George put me on this was so Queens bridge. I'm thinking prodigies keep it thorough without hair. They keep it durough. How important are they still wines to to the culture out here. 4th as we know it as a fortified wine man is being producing 4 for the last 250 years, maybe 300 years. Not more than that as a fortified one, but before that. One was full fermented, was dry like we we call it Dora wines today. And so when you look at the history, there's more history of making dry wines then ports. Ramos Pinto was really the first company in the Doral to plant a vineyard just for the production of dry wines and it's a tremendous success. You know the sales are going through the roof. We are all very excited with that because it's a. A new era in the history of the Zorro We are we have relaunched a new, but at the same time very old Appalachian, right?