Once the floodgate is opened, the water comes out quickly, decreasing almost half a meter in height and leaving the eight metal boxes in sight, where the 3200 bottles are stored. Two men enter the water to secure the hook of the huge crane, which will then carefully lift these boxes one by one, depositing them on the bank.
When the first box is lifted and deposited, while water is still running, Fernando Leitão, president of the Única cooperative winery, is the first to reach the bottles, covered with a thin film of mud. "Let's see how this looks," he says, with a smile.
He is joined by Emídio Paias, from the «From Algarve» company, Luís Encarnação and Francisco Martins, respectively councilor and mayor of Lagoa, Carlos Garcias, president of the Algarve Wine Commission, as well as dozens of other people who were watching the withdrawal of the 3200 bottles of red wine that were left to age for three months, at the bottom of a branch of the Arade river, at Sítio das Fontes, in Estômbar (Lagoa).
Inside the bottles, with the neck sealed in red (to protect the cork stopper), there is a Lagoa Tinto Reserva 2014, from Adega Única, made with Aragonês, parakeet/castellan, cabernet and «a touch of alicante-bouschet» varieties . It is a wine made from «old vines», «with great potential for evolution and aging», as the winemaker João do Ó Marques explains. «These are wines that can look very rough», when they are young, «but that's what allows them to evolve».
After having aged for 14 months in French oak barrels, the bottles were submerged in the water of the River Arade for just over three months.
And why submerge them in river water? To «simulate the ideal conditions of aging, temperature, pressure, constant conditions», explained the winemaker.
Whether or not this Lagoa Tinto Reserva 2014, with 14th grade, is an excellent wine – which, however, even without the underwater stage, has already won a silver medal in an international competition – will be seen in the next Fatacil, next August, announced Luís Encarnação.
The councilor, responsible for the intense programming of Lagoa Cidade do Vinho 2016, noted that this is the first time that an Algarve wine is subject to submersion to help in its aging process, results «from a challenge that was launched to the Chamber by part of Adega Única and From Algarve and which we gladly accepted”.
Moments before the bottles began to emerge, Luís Encarnação confessed that he was a little anxious about the outcome of the operation. «After the bottles emerge, this wine will be subject to an evaluation process, to find out if we really have a better wine here».
Emídio Paias, from «From Algarve», who, together with Adega Única, will market this very special Lagoa Reserva Tinto 2014, expressed his expectations regarding the final result of the operation and was keen to emphasize his joy at the fact that the submersion of the 3200 bottles was carried out «in my municipality of Lagoa, in the parish of Estômbar where I was born and in Sítio das Fontes, where I took my first strokes».
As for Fernando Leitão, president of the Única cooperative winery, he admitted the «very difficult phase that the winery is going through», but stressed that «we have never rejected a challenge». «After seeing the bottles coming out of the water, I was even more curious».
While the evaluation, even in the laboratory, of wine that has aged for more than three months in the waters of the River Arade is not carried out, it remains to wait. And you can be sure that, if the operation does not yield visible results in terms of wine quality, it is at least a great marketing strategy.
Anyone who wants to buy this special wine will have to wait another month and a half until Fatacil, the big fair that takes place in August.
And then there will even be another surprise, as councilor Luís Encarnação insisted on revealing to dozens of guests: «we will try to break the record for the greatest gift ever, for the Guinness Book of Records, by toasting this Lagoa Reserva Red 2014'. It will be the same wine, although from bottles that were not submerged in the river Arade. «We're going to break the Guinness record, everyone toasted with Lagoa wine».
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues|Sul Informação
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