Winemaker Notes
The wine is a medium lemon color with intense aromas of white grapefruit zest combined with flint and floral notes of Paper Whites. This 100% varietal Alvarhino is elegant and engaging, with a touch of white peach skin on the palate and a long mineral finish. The partial barrel fermentation rounds out angular edges, but the racy acidity brings you back for another sip.
This mineral-driven wine makes an excellent partner for ceviche, Vietnamese-style summer rolls, Gazpacho, Greek feta, cucumber and olive salads and goat cheese & onion tart.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is aromatic with sliced apples, lemon pith, white flowers and crushed stones. Medium- to full-bodied and round-textured with attractive, crunchy acidity cutting through. Mineral with crisp stone fruit and an energetic finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
The wine comes from the Monçao and Melgaço region of VInho Verde, the home of Alvarinho. It is a textured wine, poised between freshness and ripe white fruits.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Alvarinho is unoaked, dry (four grams of residual sugar and 6.2 of total acidity), without fizz and comes in at 13% alcohol. More successful than the Loureiro, this expresses its grape well even while seeming elegant. The purity of the fruit is impressive and it tastes great too, always in a dry and clean fashion.
Bright and aromatic with distinctive floral and fruity characteristics, Albariño has enjoyed a surge in popularity and an increase in plantings over the last couple of decades. Thick skins allow it to withstand the humid conditions of its homeland, Rías Baixas, Spain, free of malady, and produce a weighty but fresh white. Somm Secret—Albariño claims dual citizenship in Spain and Portugal. Under the name Alvarinho, it thrives in Portugal’s northwestern Vinho Verde region, which predictably, borders part of Spain’s Rías Baixas.
A cheerful, translucid, lemon-yellow and slightly pétillant white wine, Vinho Verde literally means ‘green wine’ and is named after the northwest Portugese region from which it originates. The ‘green’ in the name refers to the youthful state in which the wines are customarily released and consumed, not the color of the wine.
It is typically a blend of various percentages of Alvarinho, Loureiro, Trajadura, and Pedernã (Arinto). Following initial alcoholic fermentation, a natural, secondary malolactic conversion in cask produces carbon dioxide, giving Vinho Verde its charmingly light sparkle.