XXVI Talhas
Vila Alva, Alentejo
Preserving Portugal’s Amphora Wine Traditions
More than just a winery, XXVI Tahlas represents an intergenerational effort not only to preserve centuries-old winemaking knowledge and techniques before they are forgotten, but to capture a level of refinement and elegance many thought impossible in traditional amphora winemaking. The south of Portugal has one of the oldest continuous traditions of clay amphora winemaking in the world. It was brought by the Romans over 2000 years ago, and has been in continuous use ever since. Known in Portugal as “talha” these clay jars were once found in nearly every country home south of Lisbon. After hard days of working the fields, workers would wind their way home, stopping at friend’s and neighbors houses for a tipple of home made talha wine.
In most of Europe amphora wines are often structured, rusticly textured wines defined by phenolic and oxidative flavors. Traditionally, however, talha wine in southern Portugal was all about one word- freshness. Grapes were picked early and fermented gently on the skins in large talhas that had been sealed with pês (a mixture of olive oil, pine resin, and beeswax), which was applied in a paper thin layer and glazed on with intense heat to neutralize the flavor (these wines are NOT retsina-y). The wines were then removed quickly, the Talhas traditionally tapped in November of the same vintage for the villagers to consume communally. The resulting wines were fresh, juicy, and in many cases, shockingly complex and ageworthy.
XXVI Talhas are a group of friends from the tiny, 500-person village of Vila Alva. While there are other estates in Portugal working with amphorae, XXVI Tahlas is the leader in championing and pushing the boundaries of quality of this traditional style of talha wine. They work in an ancient adega, where the high ceiling and thick stone walls seem to miraculously tame the Alentejo sun. They organically farm old, local vineyards and seek out and refurbish nineteenth-century talhas. And they preserve memory and tradition, from restoring Daniel and Alda’s grandfather’s adega, to learning talha winemaking techniques from Ricardo’s father, to finding and learning from the best pês expert in Alentejo, to tinkering with their technique until the grandparents of Vila Alva proclaimed that XXVI Talhas had finally succeeded in recreating talha wine as they remember it from their youth. Like the traditional style, these wines are all about freshness, but perhaps more importantly, the estate represents the sense of community and conviviality that is inherent in the talha tradition!