The land best known for its Port makes red wine as rugged as the slopes on which their vineyards sit. They typically deliver big flavors and firm structure at a modest price but they aren’t for the “soft and smooth” crowd. Most are blends dominated by the robustly tannic Touriga Nacional. But this wine is a bit different being a blend of 40% Touriga Franca, 40% Tinta Roriz (known as Tempranillo in Spain) and only 20% Touriga Nacional. It’s still well structured but the tannins have softened, especially now that it’s 6 years from its vintage date and it doesn’t quite have the midpalate heft and concentration of many Portuguese reds.

It is nevertheless a good value  as it delivers a seriously strange evolution.

The nose of roasted meat, earth, and saddle leather surrounding a core of dark berry is stunning. But in the mouth the full, structured fruit flattens out midpalate acquiring a metallic tone and a bit of severity, with powdery tannins lingering as the textured, prickly finish slowly fades in a cloud of dust. This is an odd trajectory starting round and full but hollowing out and then becoming exceedingly long and granular.

It’s good, cheap and weird. Points for originality.

25% of the wine saw used French oak for 9 months.

Works well with some dirty synth layered over a repetitive pulsing beat.

Score: 88

Price: $10

Alc: 14%

In the budget wine category, Portugal is producing some of the best value on the market. This is one example.

Rich, ripe blackberry with fresh wood notes and hints of damp leaves accompany the characteristic savory herbal aromas that give Douro wines their distinctiveness. Good complexity at this price.

Concentrated forward fruit is enlivened by stealth salami flavors that foretell thick, hefty tannins on the medium length finish. This is a robust wine, solidly built, that maintains a rugged aspect despite having the harsh edges sanded down. Hovering between rustic and polished, this indeterminacy is part of what makes the dry wines from the Douro interesting.

Produced by the Symington family with grapes grown in vineyards that supply Dow with its better known Port wines, the blend for this wine changes each year. The 2013 is 40% Tinta Barroca, 30% Touriga Franca, 20% Touriga Nacional, 10% Tinta Roriz.

I can’t think of a better value wine.

Nobody does polished rustic like Bonny Raitt “Used to Rule the World”

Score: 89

Price: $11

Alc: 14%