GRAPEVINE: KATHRYN McWHIRTER ON NEW REDS FROM PORTUGAL

GROWING grapes for port is the main occupation of the isolated farmers up in the wild and beautiful Douro mountains in the north of Portugal. Apart from the port, they have always made some tough red wine to drink themselves. They need to be self-sufficient here. Many farms are up tortuous, precipitous dirt tracks among the massive hills that roll out for miles on either side of the Douro River. But it is only recently that a few big firms, and a very few individual estates, have begun making more approachable, quality red wines intended for the outside world. And the most exciting of these so far is the estate of Quinta do Crasto.

Crasto, with its 7,000 olive trees and vines on a steep promontory overlooking the Douro River, is owned by an Oporto banker, Jorge Roquette, and his wife, Leonor. Earlier generations of Leonor's family had used the estate for hunting, weekends and holidays, and so for many years did Jorge and Leonor, selling all their wine to the big port companies. Then in the late Eighties, like other owners of prime Douro sites, they became eligible for very advantageous loans from the World Bank, intended to improve farming conditions and grape quality in one of the poorest parts of Europe. So they added new vineyards, growing the most flavourful of the port grape varieties, to the terraces of old vines and olive trees. The aim was to bottle their port on the estate, rather than selling it off anonymously in bulk.

Jorge's brother, Jose, was making lovely, expensive red wines on his big estate in Esporao, much further south; and his success gave Jorge the idea of making table wines in the Douro, alongside the port. Jose's wine-maker was an Australian, David Baverstock, so he was the obvious choice to make the Crasto wines too. At vintage time, David now makes the six-hour drive from Esporao to Crasto once a week.

"Douro grapes are outstanding," he says. "They are dark and tannic, very intense and concentrated, and a completely different flavour. And Crasto seems to be particularly favoured. The old vines, with their low yields, are outstanding." Last vintage, the grapes were picked for the first time in the modern, quality-conscious way into small, stackable containers instead of being tipped and crushed into a two-ton bin on the back of a tractor. The fermenting juice was left, Australian-style, for a shorter time in contact with the tannic skins, the skins were pressed only gently, and the young, fruity wine was bottled months before any Portu-guese wine- maker would have done it.

Despite the new, stainless steel winery, David has chosen to have some of the table wine trodden by foot in the traditional shallow lagares and to blend that in before bottling with wine made in the new tanks. Research has shown that better port is made in these old troughs than in the various types of modern tank invented to do the job.

Using the lagares for the table wine came about by accident. The first vintage, the 1994, had been made under David's supervision at a nearby estate, since Crasto's wine-making equipment was not yet installed. Even by the time the 1995 vintage started, the refrigeration required to control the fermentation at Crasto was not quite ready. The port didn't need refrigeration, so they switched plans and started with the port, intending to leave the table wines until the following week when the cooling would be in place. "We trod the grapes that night, and the next day the juice had amazing colour and extraction," David says. "When the port-makers went off for their lunch break, I ran the whole lot off into my red wine fermentation tanks and let it finish fermenting there. It was the best table wine we made in 1995." Result: they will use the lagares for part of the table wine in future vintages; and David will also make the ports, because the local port-makers were so miffed.

The 1995 vintage is not yet ready, but of the two red wines made in the first year, the least expensive, 1994 Quinta do Crasto, makes delicious drinking now; it's intensely fruit with a touch of oak and tannin (pounds 5.49 Oddbins, Selfridges - mail order 0171 318 3730; pounds 5.99 Enotria-Winecellars, London SW18 and also mail order on 0181 871 2668). The more complex, longer- lived 1994 Reserva will arrive in September. It is much oakier, with soft tannins and really intense fruit from the old vines. "I'd start drinking this in two or three years' time," David says, "and then carry on for five or 10 years. This Douro wine really holds its fruit - just like vintage port does."