Winemaker Notes
#31 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2021
Brilliant intense yellow straw color with greenish rim, good viscosity. Very mineral nose with a certain smokiness due to the limestone soil. It has a distinguished fruity touch of pears (typical Bical) and slightly nutty character (hazelnut, almonds, pines). After some time in the glass it even reveals thyme and honey. The mouth is refined, creamy, relatively smooth and has present minerality, a kind of saltiness due to typical Atlantic climate. The wine is very broad in the mouth with an almost crunchy, nutty texture. The finish is voluptuous with very precise notes of preserved and ripe fruit.
A real food wine which will accompany a wide range of dishes. Just think about noble fish (seabass, turbot, brill, dover sole), lobster, king crab. All prepared as natural as possible (steamed, poached, grilled). Braised sweetbread, poached poultry and veal and pork fillet will do the job. A nice creamy cheese (Brie, Camembert, Serra da Estrela) can be a nice option too.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Elegantly crafted, with lemon curd, pineapple and white blossom notes. This medium-bodied white offers lovely purity and vivid minerality, with tangerine, chamomile and spice elements cascading onto the herb-tinged finish.
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Wine & Spirits
This grows mid-slope on a chalky-clay hillside in Ois de Bairro, where the vines average 40 years old. It’s made from free-run juice, spontaneously fermented in cask, where it rests for eight months developing pale Marcona almond flavors to ground the fresh apple and lemon-yellow fruit. It’s a lovely acid-driven white with floral delicacy, and enough depth for a trotter terrine.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Branco Nossa Calcário is a single-vineyard (Ois do Bairro) Bical aged for nine months in 20% new and mostly French barrels (some Austrian). It comes in at just 12.4% alcohol. This seems a bit fuller in body than its siblings this issue—of course, it also has the most oak treatment. Yet it absorbs the wood beautifully, leaving a refreshing and understated white that is hard to resist. Its graceful presentation and bright finish are a big part of that. For all of its understatement, I suspect it will age well. It may yet improve too.
There are hundreds of white grape varieties grown throughout the world. Some are indigenous specialties capable of producing excellent single varietal wines. Each has its own distinct viticultural characteristics, as well as aroma and flavor profiles.