The Lisbon Connection

There are not many real Wine Bars in Lisbon and this is a special one! In ‘the Goliards’ cellar you will find a selection of wines that were discovered directly on the production site, after a lot of frantic visits to different regions in Portugal, France, Spain and Italy. They are unique wines, a lot of them unknown in Portugal, made by demanding and passionate winegrowers, at very interesting prices.

 

Nadir Bensmail (born in Algeria, his parents moved to Toulouse in France when he was a kid) and Silvia Mourão Bastos met each other in Paris in 2000. They both have a similar passion: talking, laughing and drinking good wine! Nowadays they are real professionals: in 2005 they opened Wine bar ‘Os Goliardos’ in Lisbon.

The patio garden of Wine bar ‘Os Goliardos’. Once a week wine-linked events are being organised here like wine tastings with explanations for groups in different languages, get-togethers between amateurs and winegrowers and various events (like Beaujolais Nouveau), to promote the wine as a part of a culture.

The project of ‘The Goliards’ was born from their passion for wine and visits to winegrowers in different countries. At the moment, Silvia and Nadir visited over 500 winegrowers (their pictures are hanging on the walls in the bar) in Portugal, France, Spain and Italy. “They are our teachers and the source of our enthusiasm. We look for winegrowers with a deep soul, who conduct orchestras of scents and flavours, in symbiosis with the soil. We are greedy, curious and demanding explorers!”

In the wine bar you can discover a weekly selection of glasses (from €2,50) or bottles of wine (from € 4- € 50), sit inside or outside in the courtyard, eat a bit, like cheese, cold meats, canapés or tarts and buy wine to take back home with you (reds, whites, but also sweet wines, Port and Madeira).

“Bishop Golias”. The Goliards were a group of clergy who wrote bibulous, satirical Latin poetry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They were mainly clerical students at the universities of France, Germany, Italy, and England who protested the growing contradictions within the Church, such as the failure of the Crusades and financial abuses, expressing themselves through song, poetry and performance.

The derivation of the word is uncertain. It was said by them to originate from a mythical “Bishop Golias”, a mediæval Latin form of the name Goliath, the giant who fought King David in the Bible, suggestive of their posing as heavy drinking yet learned students who lampooned the ecclesiastical and political establishment.

‘We raise our glasses with different wines, different friends, old friends and new friends. We import wines from different countries directly from the winegrowers, that are very original and well-recognized by the wine-lovers of these countries. Ex: Champagnes, Sauternes, Chianti, Piemonte, Ribera del Duero, Rioja, Alsace wines, Bourgogne, Bordeaux, Syrah from the Rhône Valley. We are Goliards!”

Opening hours: Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 7 p.m. until 2 a.m. ‘Os Goliardos’  Lisbon, Rua Mãe d’Agua, n° 9, between Praça da Alegria and Príncipe Real. Tel/fax: +(351) 21 3462156
Mobile: +(351) 96 2022242
info@osgoliardos.com

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