Winemaker Notes
With the color of bright citrine, the bouquet is intense, dominated by citrus fruits and the floral aromas characteristic of the Loureiro grape. On the palate this wine is vibrant and balanced with a refreshing acidity that anticipates a good evolution. While this wine is ready to drink, it will also age well in its first few years.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This is the first release from Ameal since Esporão purchased the historic property in 2019. Sited above the Lima River, an area noted for its loureiro, Ameal holds its yields to 5.5 tons per hectare, growing a deep-toned wine, markedly vinous. This starts off smelling like fresh green pears, ripening and ready to fall off the tree. Then the mineral tones develop: rock, flowers and salt in a tense standoff, soothed by the round, generous texture of the wine. This is irresistible in its youth, and affordable enough that it’s worth holding a bottle or two for next summer, to see how it will evolve.
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Wine Enthusiast
Loureiro, the grape of the Lima Valley, shines in this lemon-flavored, mineral-textured wine. While there is plenty of young fruitiness and vibrant crispness, it has the potential to fill out and give richness in the future. Drink from 2021.
Dating back to the late 18th century, Loureiro is native to Iberian Peninsula, grown mostly within the Minho region, though has flourished currently into neighboring Galicia. It produces a dry, high-toned, crisp white wine, redolent with aromas of white flowers and bay leaves. The grape is essential to the production of Portugeuse Vinho Verde and white blends of the Spanish region Rias Baixas. Somm Secret—The word Loureiro means “laurel” in Portugeuse, conveying the wine’s bay leaf aromatics.
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.