The Range Of Baga: Two Bottles, One Grape, One Region

Bairrada sits on Portugal's central coast — 100 kilometers south of Porto, 15 from the Atlantic, with clay-limestone soils and roughly a meter of rain a year. The region is named for its dirt; "barro" is Portuguese for clay. Its grape is Baga: late-ripening, thin-skinned, tannic, and prone to rot when the autumn rains arrive at the wrong moment. Plenty of growers gave up on it in the 1990s and replanted with international varieties. The producers who didn't are the ones rebuilding the region's reputation now. This week we're showing two of them — Caves São João and Vadio — and two bottles that argue for completely different sides of what the grape can be.

The Caves São João Baga Novo 2023 comes from one of Bairrada's oldest family wine houses. The Costa brothers — José, Manuel, and Albano — founded the company in 1920, and it remains the oldest still operating in the municipality of Anadia. They are also the only Portuguese producer offering library vintages commercially back to 1959, which tells you what they think Baga can do with time. The Baga Novo is the opposite argument. It's built for now: 100% Baga from clay-rich Bairrada soils, vinified in stainless steel with five days of skin contact at 68°F, finishing at 11% ABV. The light extraction pulls strawberry and dried rose petal aromatics without locking in the grape's heavy tannins. Bright acid keeps the wine fresh, with a touch of light spice at the finish. Serve chilled. This is what Baga looks like when you stop asking it to be serious.

The Vadio Bairrada Vinho Tinto 2020 is the other end of the range. After 13 years running red wine production at Esporão, Luís Patrão launched Vadio in 2005 with his wife Eduarda Dias. The estate is small — 10 certified organic hectares across 27 plots in Vale D. Pedro, 20 kilometers from the Atlantic on one side and the Bussaco mountains on the other, at 65 meters elevation. The 2020 selects from 20 of those plots, each vinified separately with indigenous yeasts and 20 to 30% whole clusters. The wine then ages two winters in used barrels and oak vats, plus a year in bottle before release. It finishes at 13% ABV — herbal aromatics, polished tannins, and a maritime salinity that runs through the palate. 20,000 bottles were bottled in February 2023.

Two producers, two bottles, same grape, same dirt. The Caves São João is a summer wine. Chill it, pour it cold, drink it with grilled fish or jamón. The Vadio is a wine for the table and the cellar — pair it with roasted lamb or aged sheep's milk cheese, or hold it a few years and see what Baga does with time. Both come from clay-limestone soils a short drive apart in central Portugal. Both are made by people who decided Baga was worth sticking with. They just had different ideas about what to do with it.