Ramos Family Selection Reserva Review: An £8.50 Portuguese Red That Deserves Some Cellar Time

Sometimes you walk down the wine aisle and something just catches your eye.

I was in Morrisons when I spotted the Ramos Family Selection Reserva for £8.50. This isn’t actually a new wine to me. I’ve had it before and know it as a trusty midweek Portuguese red, so initially there wasn’t really any intention of doing another tasting note.

Then I saw the packaging.

It comes in this really smart burgundy presentation box with gold detailing and, for £8.50, it looks fantastic. It genuinely feels like someone has put some thought into presenting an affordable bottle of wine properly rather than just sticking it on the shelf and letting the price do the selling.

So into the basket it went.

A Familiar Wine That Suddenly Felt a Bit More Interesting

The blend is Alicante Bouschet, Touriga Nacional, Syrah and Trincadeira, which gives you a fair idea of what you’re getting into. This should be a dark fruited, fairly powerful Portuguese red with plenty going on.

I paired it with a Tuscan style beef ragù and pappardelle, finished with Parmesan. Rich slow cooked beef, tomato, pasta and plenty of savoury flavour seemed exactly the sort of food this needed.

And actually, once I poured the wine, I started wondering whether I’d underestimated it slightly in the past.

Almost Cabernet Like on the Nose

The nose was great.

There was something surprisingly high end Cabernet esque about it. Not necessarily because it smelled specifically of Cabernet Sauvignon, but it had that same serious dark fruited character that I associate with a decent Cabernet based wine.

There was plenty of dark fruit with a hint of spice, but importantly it didn’t smell overly sweet, jammy or manufactured. For an £8.50 supermarket wine there was a surprising amount of depth.

It certainly smelled more expensive than it was.

Young, Fresh and Full of Dark Fruit

On the palate it’s very much a young wine at the moment.

Fresh, vibrant dark fruit comes through immediately with that little hint of spice following behind. There’s good concentration without it becoming too heavy, and then I picked up something I wasn’t particularly expecting.

Mushroom.

Not loads of it, but there was a lovely savoury, almost umami flavour running underneath the fruit. That’s probably the part of the wine that interested me most because it gave it another dimension beyond simply being a decent fruity Portuguese red.

And with the food, that note made complete sense.

The Ragù Brought Out Its Savoury Side

That mushroom like umami character spoke to the beef ragù really well.

The richness of the slow cooked beef worked with the darker fruit while the Parmesan brought even more savouriness into the equation. Rather than one overpowering the other, the wine seemed to settle into the dish.

This is definitely a food wine for me.

It’s perfectly enjoyable on its own, but with something rich and savoury alongside it, those darker and earthier flavours start making a lot more sense.

For a random midweek dinner, it was a really enjoyable pairing.

But I Think There’s More to Come

The interesting thing is that, as much as I enjoyed it now, I couldn’t help thinking it could do with a good few years in bottle.

Everything feels very fresh and youthful. The fruit is vibrant, the structure is there and those little savoury notes are already starting to show themselves underneath.

Which got me thinking.

Part of me wants to go back to Morrisons, buy another bottle in this packaging and put it away for 10 years.

The box actually makes it even more tempting as a little ageing experiment. Keep it properly cellared and there’s virtually no concern about light strike, then forget about it until 2036 and see what happens.

Maybe the fruit disappears and it falls apart. It’s an £8.50 supermarket wine after all.

But what if it doesn’t?

What if that fresh dark fruit softens, the savoury character develops and that little mushroom note turns into something properly earthy and tertiary?

For £8.50, I’d quite like to find out.

£8.50 Very Well Spent

I’m not suggesting this is suddenly a fine wine because it comes in a nice box. It’s still an affordable Portuguese red designed to be enjoyed without too much ceremony.

But that’s exactly why I like it.

The packaging is excellent, the wine smells far more serious than its price suggests, there’s plenty of fresh dark fruit and spice, and that little mushroom like umami character gave it genuine interest alongside food.

Portugal continues to be one of those places where you can spend less than £10 and come away wondering how they’ve managed to put this much wine in the bottle for the money.

I bought this expecting a familiar, dependable midweek red.

I’ve finished the evening wondering what it might taste like in 2036.

That’s probably as good a compliment as I can give an £8.50 bottle of wine.