From €7.95, $10.99, £12.68, 135 Danish kroner, 2,695 Japanese yen, 222.21 Brazilian reais
In its broad valley, protected from the strongest influence of the Atlantic by a ridge of hills, Monção is a pretty village of old stone walls, surrounded by parcels of vines interspersed with large, white granite outcrops. Here, and further inland, in hillier Melgaço, Alvarinho finds a home within the greater Vinho Verde region of Portugal. (See map here.)
Monção is also the home to one of Vinho Verde’s greatest proponents, Anselmo Mendes. Here, at Quinta da Torre, he has established an estate comprising over 60 ha (148 acres) of vines and is producing compelling examples of the variety that the subregion of Monção e Melgaço specialises in.
In my role as British Airways’ Master of Wine, I visited Quinta da Torre in March to meet Mendes, as we’d selected his Muros Antigos Loureiro as one of our business-class wines flying this spring. Separately, back in 2017, Emily Percival selected this wine as her Wine of the Week.
While there, Mendes kindly not only prepared an excellent ceviche for us, but also set up a vertical tasting of his flagship Muros Antigos Alvarinho, with five vintages back to 2009 to show the ageing potential of this variety.
I loved the vibrancy of the 2022, with classic apple and peachy notes of the variety, and a fine balance between mouth-watering acidity and intensity. I didn’t hesitate to make this my wine of the week. It’s a pure, unoaked expression, with cool, 14–18 °C (57–64 °F) fermentations maintaining the fruit focus, followed by three months on lees with stirring to give a richness that Mendes sees as critical for balancing that marked acidity.
The 2022 is just hitting markets now, so the 2021 is more widely available at present and, with promotional pricing as low as £12.68, represents exceptional value. Though perhaps slightly lighter in intensity, the 2021 shows the same character as the 2022.
Moreover, as the vertical tasting showed, Alvarinho can indeed age, so the 2021 is still well within its drinking window; Muros Antigos Alvarinho is not a wine that demands immediate consumption.
Indeed, the 2009 showed beautifully: its aromatic profile was a fully mature blend of wax, spices, dried limes and dried peach, but the weight and intensity of peach flavours, coupled with exceptional length, meant that this wine was still giving great pleasure at 14 years of age.
Vinho Verde has traditionally been made with blends of multiple indigenous grape varieties, such as Arinto, Avesso and Trajadura. But, in the subregion of Monçao and Melgaço, where that mountainous protection from the Atlantic wind and rain creates a warm, dry pocket in which Alvarinho flourishes, single-varietal wines have become the norm.
This combination of variety and subregion has helped me better understand this large, diverse region by offering some degree of meaningful local identities. For example, the Lima valley, close to Monçao, is increasingly recognised for its varietal Loureiro wines. Mendes is also bottling a varietal Avesso from his vineyards in Baião, in the south of the Vinho Verde region, between Porto and the Douro Valley. I suspect that this form of subregional development will play a greater role in the development of Vinho Verde as a whole.
Another element in the future of Vinho Verde is surely tourism. At the time of our visit, Quinta da Torre was on the cusp of opening a new visitor centre, tasting room and accommodation which will add a second landmark for wine tourists to head to, alongside the winery of fellow Alvarinho champions Soalheiro, which is already a well-regarded destination.
But the principal element in the development of Vinho Verde has been the efforts of winegrowers such as Mendes and Soalheiro who have rejuvenated the region’s wines. In the vineyard, much of Mendes’s plantings are on trellises with Guyot or cordon training, rather than the pergolas commonly found here, and he’s currently focused on promoting biodiversity through cover crops and the planting of multiple tree species at the quinta. He’s also planted a few rows of international grape varieties just to see which perform well in the region.
In the winery, Mendes has played with skin contact and has made Alvarinho wines with anything from one day’s contact (Curtimenta) to a fully orange wine with a month on skins and stems (Tempo).
Throughout his 35 years making wine, he’s also learned how to make Alvarinho work effectively with oak – tricky to do with a characterful, aromatic variety. His testing has led him to settle on French oak, very lightly toasted in a 400-litre format, and very small proportions of new wood, to give texture over wood aromatic character. That deft hand showed through when I tasted wines like Curtimenta, whose fermentation completes in barrel.
Finally, he’s turning his hand to red Vinhos Verdes, with a particular interest in the local variety Alvarelhão. The Pardusco blend with 75% Alvarelhão certainly fits the current trend for pale, fresh reds with moderate tannins and plenty of character.
All this points to a positive future for Mendes’s winery. With a couple of significant recent investments in the region by producers from outside Vinho Verde, including the Symington family, who bought Casa de Rodas in December 2022 and who will partner with Mendes, this also points to a continuation of the renaissance of Vinho Verde.
For those taking their first steps in exploring this historic Portuguese region, Muros Antigos Alvarinho is a very good place to start.
JancisRobinson.com members can find many, many more Vinho Verde recommendations in our tasting note database, as well as regular coverage of Portugal's ever-exciting wine scene on our site.
