Home Tasting articles
Portugal Amphora Talha

Amphora Day 2022 – the drama of clay

Julia Harding
Julia Harding MW
Monday 27 February 2023
Opening the talha XXVI Talhas

A remarkable tasting in Portugal’s southerly Vidigueira region demonstrates the growing popularity of this style of wine.

There is a moment of drama at Amphora Day, staged every year on or soon after St Martin’s Day (11 November), the celebration of the harvest, at Herdade do Rocim’s stylish adobe-built winery in Beja in the south of the Alentejo.

That moment is the ceremonial tapping of the talha – inserting a tap into the plugged hole near the base of a traditional Alentejano clay talha – and drawing off the first of the clear wine as it filters through...