Primavera Beira Litoral Red 2002

From the Beira region of Portugal, comes this nice, little, rustic red wine. The link above takes you to the Bevmo site which may or may not have the wine any longer, (and the site showed the '01 when the '02 was what was available) at a remarkably good price of just $6.99. It's impossible to tell what is in the wine since, like France, Portugal apparently uses regional designations rather than grape varietal on the label. Their website does nothing to clear up the mystery, as it would appear to be just a home page with the pointless wording "Recomended Internet Explorer 4 or better" (sic) in both English and what I suppose is Portuguese. (Looks like Spanish, tastes like...)

The flavor would appear to be similar to Grenache with Syrah overtones. A nice full bodied, semi-dry red at an affordable price. While we do not see many wines from Portugal, they have been making wine there for centuries. (Millennia?)

The label seems to be made from a paper thin piece of cork. Unique. They must have more cork trees than paper making trees. Not that the extra cork adds to the price or flaver.