Our third course in the chef’s tasting lunch at Belcanto was a nod to tradition and modernity. The primary ingredient was a filet of hamachi made in the style of Cozido à Portuguesa, a traditional boiled dish including – well – just about everything. Greens, rice, beans, vegetables, and pork in all forms (better not to know the details) simmer in a large pot for hours.

What arrived at our table was gussied up a bit, with a lovely piece of fish atop shredded cabbage and drizzled with a flavorful broth. It represented the perfect fusion of modern cuisine with one of Portugal’s best-loved traditional meals. The broth, while sparingly spooned over the fish, was exquisitely complex. Smoky and meaty, earthy and rich. Our small tasting portion was very satisfying, a few bites giving us a full spectrum of flavors.

The Wine: 2022 Nossa Calcario Bical (Bairrada DOC)

Bical is an aromatic white grape grown mainly in the Bairrada and Dão regions. Its high acidity makes it a favorite of sparkling wine producers (especially in Bairrada) but it often finds its way into dry wines.

The Nossa comes from a biodynamically farmed plot of 40-year-old vines and is produced by Filipa Pato whose family has made wine since the 18^th century. Indeed, her father Luis is known as the “Baga Rebel” for his efforts to craft high-quality wines from a grape that can be difficult to grow in Portugal’s humid climate.

Pato and her partner, William Wouters, pride themselves on making “vinhos autenticos sem maquilagem” or authentic wines without makeup. The Nossa was whole-cluster fermented in foudres and rested on its lees for nine months without batonnage. A lovely wine, it exhibited an array of citrus flavors, ripe white peach, and yellow pear, with a complex finish redolent of fennel, wet stones, and salinity.

Thus far, the Nossa is the only wine from the tasting that I’ve been able to find in the States.

I’ll take it.

Please stay tuned for my next posts; there are several more courses to come!

P.S. If you’d like to read about the previous courses, click back to my homepage.