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Casa do Capitão-Mor Reserva Alvarinho

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Quinta de Paços Sociedade Agrícola, Lda. is a family-based company driven by inemaker Luís Cardoso Meneses   which exploits its agricultural patrimony aiming to produce high-quality wines with a distinctive personality, resulting from a special emphasis on their natural and authentic character in Portugal.

The society’s patrimony comprises an area of around 200 hectares, divided into five estates in the municipality of Barcelos – Casa de Paços – Quinta de Paços, Prazo da Cotovia, Morgadio do Perdigão, Quinta de Vila Meã and Morgadio de Real – and one in the municipality of Monção – Casa do Capitão-Mor – Quinta da Boavista.

In the municipality of Barcelos, Casa de Paços – Quinta de Paços has remained a property of the same family for more than 400 years and 15 generations, maintaining a tradition of expertise on wine making in the region of Minho lasting for more than 4 centuries.
We tasted: Casa do Capitão-Mor Reserva Alvarinho 2016
This wine is produced on granitic calcareous covered by a land terrace of rolled pebbles. It is about 900m from the river Minho, and his average altitude is 60m high in a flat terrain.
The weather transition between continental and seashore climate, with mainly cold winters with no snow or frost, and hot summers whose temperatures reach 40o Celsius, this is the main secret of this Alvarinho.
The grapes are hand harvested, destemmed, and all of them are submitted to pellicular maceration for five hour, with temperature control. After being decanted. The must is fermented in stainless steel at low temperature and the wine stays on top of the slim lees with “batonnage” until bottling. Ages 6 months in bottle.
This wine has good citric color. It has a fruity aroma, soft, fresh. In the mouth has flavors citrus fruit, woodland cherries, fresh almond and peach, elegant and a pleasant finish in an outstanding balance.
Ideal with grilled fish, white meat and seasoned cheese. 
This wine is among 50 Best Portuguese Wines.

Fresh toasts to Col Vetoraz’s summer, where harmony is at home

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The welcome wine par excellence knows how to adapt to every season of the year but you know, in summer it more easily recalls the desire for liveliness, joy, lightness and sharing in friendship. And what summer would it be without exchanging toasts and smiles? Col Vetoraz puts his answer in the glasses giving for the most beautiful season of the year so much lively freshness, but without forgetting the notes of elegance and harmony that have always been the distinctive feature of his sparkling wines.

In line with the desire for pleasantness typical of these months of the year, among the labels of the company from Santo Stefano di Valdobbiadene we specially choose two wines at the antipodes in terms of taste; Valdobbiadene DOCG Brut for dry palates and Valdobbiadene DOCG Extra Dry for those who prefer more sweet tones.

The first is obtained from grapes from the hillside vineyards exposed to the west where ripening is ideal to produce this specific type, suitable for palates that prefer dry, intense and dry taste without sharpness but at the same time gives delicate aromas. It can be enjoyed on fish starters, mixed fried fish, aged cheeses, even processed vegetables, first courses with seafood and baked fish dishes. The second, friendly that immediately invites you to taste is the true prince of aperitifs. It is obtained thanks to a careful selection of the grapes that grow in the exclusive area of ​​Valdobbiadene, has a balanced taste and elegant tones whose moderate residual sugar contributes to obtaining a great harmony of the whole. The delicately fruity aromas recall the rose, the acacia flower, the delicate vine flower, the white peach, the pear, and a slight citrus fruit. It can also be paired with meats, croutons, fresh cheeses, salmon canapés or smoked sturgeon, or with pasta dishes such as cold or legume soups or with raw fish, lobster, scampi and seafood salads accompanied with side dishes. potatoes and herbs.

Always at the forefront of the most accredited wine competitions, here are the awards obtained in the last period by the company’s wines. The International Wine and Spirit Competition 2019 awarded the Silver Medal to Valdobbiadene DOCG Superiore di Cartizze with 92 points and Valdobbiadene DOCG ‘Dosaggio Zero’ with 90 points while the Bronze Medal at Valdobbiadene DOCG Brut 2018, at Valdobbiadene DOCG Extra Dry 2018 and Valdobbiadene DOCG Dry Millesimato 2018. A Bronze Medal at Valdobbiadene DOCG Extra Dry was received at the International Wine Challenge 2019.

There are instead five Silver Medals awarded by the XIII International Wine Competition “Città del Vino”, Forum Spumanti (formerly Mayor’s Selection) to all five types of sparkling wine.

Double anniversary for Tenuta di Ghizzano

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30 years of Veneroso and 20 of Nambrot

 

An honours-filled history in its past and a present marked by celebrations: Tenuta di Ghizzano, one of the iconic producers of the Terre di Pisa zone, lies not far from the sea, amidst gentle hills which the Venerosi Pesciolini family’s watchtower has vigilantly guarded for centuries. Today, that estate is the birthplace of elegant wines that conjure up a Tuscany that is both refined and unexpected.

Ginevra Venerosi Pesciolini, following in the footsteps of her father, has transformed the family estate into a winemaking jewel that embraces history and its environment in perfect balance. This bio-ecosystem of 350 hectares, with 20 in vineyard, produces wines that are deeply rooted in their terroir. Two of them have become widely-hailed benchmarks: Veneroso, a wine that has written the history of the winery and that celebrates this year its 30th vintage, and Nambrot, a Bordeaux blend that is the fruit of a lengthy evolution over the span of its 20 vintages.

 

Veneroso saw the light of day in 1985, in the heroic, pioneering period of the emergence of the first Super Tuscans, and it quickly became the symbol of the excellence of the entire area. Today, it is a blend of Sangiovese with a tot of Cabernet Sauvignon, made from grapes from a number of parcels, whose south-southwest aspect and 180-metre elevation allow the grapes outstanding ripeness. The warm, well-balanced 2015 growing season produced a wine of obvious excellence for the 30th milestone.

Nambrot emerged in 1996, when the producer found that a cuvée of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot offered the finest expression of the power and warmth that characterised the estate’s terroir. Nambrot’s current 2016 vintage, reflecting a moderately-warm season, offers a refreshing crispness and magisterial complexity.

Both wines showcase enviable balance and thoroughgoing respect for the surrounding environment, the expression of vineyards that are both organically and biodynamically farmed (Demeter certification).

 

The Venerosi Pesciolini family is deservedly proud of this double birthday, and to celebrate it the bottles of Veneroso 2015 and Nambrot 2016 bear commemorative labels and their special boxes display the iconic image of the villa branded into the wood.

 

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The estate. The Venerosi Pesciolini family has owned Tenuta di Ghizzano since 1370. It lies in the village of Ghizzano, with an ancient watch-tower guarding from above. At its feet is an inviting, almost-magical Italian-style garden, while the winecellar lies below the foundations of the Villa, and the all-enfolding vineyards form Renaissance landscapes. Certified organic viticultural practices have made it a benchmark of sustainability, and Demeter certified it as biodynamic as well, in 2018. In addition to Veneroso and Nambrot, the estate produces Ghizzano Rosso and Ghizzano Bianco, the former a Sangiovese with a few drops of Merlot, the latter a classically white Tuscan blend of Vermentino, Trebbiano, and Malvasia Bianca. In accord with local tradition, Ghizzano also makes San Germano, a sweet Passito IGT, from old vines of Trebbiano, Malvasia Bianca, and Colombana, and two styles of extravirgin olive oil.

Le Colture debuts at VINEXPO 2019

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Le Colture is ready to live an important new debut, joining for the first time the exhibitors of the coming Vinexpo edition. The Ruggeri family is proud to present you their most representative wines at the Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG Consortium boots in Hall 1 CD75: Valdobbiadene DOCG Superiore di Cartizze, Valdobbiadene DOCG Extra Dry, Valdobbiadene DOCG brut ‘Fagher’.
“We are experiencing a moment of significant evolution – commented Alberto and Veronica Ruggeri – that sees us more and more protagonists on international scenarios. For some time now we have been working in foreign markets, some of which are happily consolidating, and for us this is a continuous challenge to confront ourselves on new territories, open to meet a different audience of future wine lovers, to whom we firstly aim to tell our story, which is worth knowing to fully appreciate our wines ”.

Le Colture is a wine company strongly linked to its territory, the Valdobbiadene DOCG, and which sums up in itself the deep meaning of living and cultivating the vine on this land. With its 40 hectares of direct ownership, it has been present in the territory since 1983, but its cornerstone lies in being above all a family, which every day of the year commits itself to enhancing the Prosecco Superiore di Valdobbiadene DOCG. Cesare Ruggeri, father of Silvia, Alberto and Veronica, is Le Colture’s intuitive mind, the true “vigneron” and it’s thanks to him if today we produce 800.000 bottles per year. At the end of the 80s he understood the potential and the strength of Prosecco Superiore and it was then that a small farm made up of a few cows began its transformation; starting from the ’90s with lots of sacrifices Cesare bought some land so as to make Le Colture evolve in a company with a complete production chain, but above all self-sufficient with its own grapes.

“The Prosecco Superiore is an immediate wine – continues Veronica Ruggeri – so over the years our primary purpose has always been to bring home healthy grapes that we follow scrupulously and with extreme care in their growth. Each of us is a part of this reality, starting from our mother Bianca, pillar of this company together with our father Cesare, up to us three brothers, Silvia, Alberto and myself. With our sparkling wines we communicate with passion and authenticity our life, our land and our history into the world. “

Poema Reserva 2015

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Inspired by history and the incomparable beauty of the landscape born the brand Poema to take the family legacy further, respecting the past and always looking into the future.

Every year a limited and numbered edition of Poema in Albariño cradle in Portugal is produced. We are in a magical place on the bank of Minho River, where the family lived peacefully in communion with nature since the seventeenth century.

Like their ancestors, the family work the land with the Alvarinho grape variety.
In 2000 was made a restructuring of vineyards undertaken by their predecessors Hermínio and Maria de Fátima – awarded by the French Ministry of Agriculture in 2003, with the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole and invaluable source of strength and knowledge.

Located in the northern most part of Portugal, the beauty of the countryside scenery.

Quinta do Louridal is located in Monção-Melgaço region considered the birthplace of the Alvarinho grape variety in Portugal.  Vineyards in amphitheatre shape are protected by the mountains, sheltered by the granite soils and spoilt by long sun exposure topped by a soft breeze from the Minho River.
This region, in the Minho River Valley, has a microclimate marked by the transition from an Atlantic to a Continental climate. Hot, dry summers with cool nights and cold humid winters.

We tasted: Poema Reserva 2015

This wine produced from Alvarinho grape variety, is very fresh with a stray yellow color and delicaate sparkling. In the mouth is very mineral wih orange and pineapple aromas. The taste is persistent and balanced, result of the prolonged stage in fine lees.

Pairing food

Ideal with fish, seafood, white meats, ham and soft cheeses.

This wine can be stored for several years to drink with pleasure in good company.

ORNELLAIA TOUR & TASTING: a Journey through Emotion

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Travelling along the Viale dei Cipressi, one first catches sight of Bolgheri’s roofline and the Tyrrhenian Sea behind it. Then, just a few more minutes and the gates of Ornellaia greet its visitors on their adventure to discover the famous Bolgheri Superiore DOC. Now that the weather has warmed up a bit, it is in fact the ideal time to plan a trip along the Tuscan coast, exploring its villages, and above all to understand where and how one of the Italy’s true treasures emerge: Ornellaia, a wine that has succeeded in positioning itself at the top of international wine charts in only 30 years.

The wine experience starts in the vineyards, on a discovery tour of the different micro-zones, the soil composition of the vineyards, and how the vines are trained. Following the path of the grapes, the journey continues into the cellar, where visitors can see where the wines “take shape” and also admire the art installations that from 2009 to today, one each year, have enriched the Ornellaia collection, thanks to the Vendemmia d’Artista art project.

Even before entering the cellar, visitors can gaze upon some artworks out in the open air: “Happily Ever After” by Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, “Splash” by John Armleder, and Yutaka Sone’s interpretation of L’Eleganza. Once visitors enter the cellar they are struck by the explosion of colours of Luigi Ontani’s installation, followed by those of Zhang Huan, Rebecca Horn, Michelangelo Pistoletto and others along the way. Descending into the heart of the cellar is increasingly exciting: the oak barrels are imposing, and in the air – in a perfect silence –  you can almost smell the wine.

At the end of the tour, finally, a tasting of the entire range of the current vintage. Wines include Le Volte dell’Ornellaia, Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia, and Ornellaia. But there’s more. Ornellaia has saved a truly exclusive surprise for its guests: a tasting of “Variazioni in Rosso dell’Ornellaia”, a cuvée that can only be tasted and bought at the estate. With this limited-production Tuscan IGT, Ornellaia expresses the individuality of each vintage through a particularly distinctive grape variety that the winemaker highlights in the blend. An inimitable tasting experience.

The “Tour & Tasting by Ornellaia” is available with advance booking. For info and prices: hospitality@ornellaia.it

Le Volte dell’Ornellaia 2017

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Great satisfactions from a challenging vintage

For over 25 years now, Le Volte dell’Ornellaia has shone as the most youthful expression of Ornellaia’s wine production; its generous, Mediterranean character combines with a firm structure and multi-layered complexity to offer, year after year, immediate, joyous pleasure.

The 2017 version has just arrived on retail shelves across the globe, the interpretation of a vintage that those near Bolgheri’s iconic Viale de Cipressi will remember as a hot, dry season.

A mild winter brought a slightly-early budbreak, whose progress was favoured by warm, temperate spring, of the kind that only the Mediterranean coast can gift. April was a more restless month, with some unexpected winter-like conditions, without, however, doing any damage to shoot growth. May seemed to usher in summer; its uninterrupted sun slowed vine growth, but flowering continued unabated. July and August were true to form, refreshed by the providentially-cool night-time temperatures typical of this area.

The harvest started early, on 24 August, and concluded in the final week of September. Towards mid-month, a few rain showers helped lower temperatures, creating, in fact, ideal conditions for finishing the harvest on a high note.

As is our custom, fermentation was performed in small steel tanks, a technique that preserves the characteristics of the varietal components (largely Merlot). The final wine was matured 10 months, part in oak barrels previously used for Ornellaia, part in concrete vats, with the objective of achieving a perfect balance between structure and fruit.

“The result of a particularly hot, dry year,” remarked Winemaker Olga Fusari, “Le Volte dell’ Ornellaia 2017 is characterised by its usual deep ruby red colour. An appealing bouquet of ripe red berryfruit and spices is sustained on the palate by crisp acidity and an open, enveloping tannic structure.”

 

Casa da Tojeira: Vinho Verde Branco Alvarinho

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Casa da Tojeira is a beautiful manor house built in 17th century of a property in the Peneda-Gerês National park, combines luxurious modern amenities with the old days charm.

Casa da Tojeira produces the famous wine with the same name.

Nature lovers can explore the 20 hectares of the farm and enjoy a variety of leisure activities such as bicycle rides, swimming, horse riding or fishing.

We tatsed:Vinho Verde Branco Alvarinho/Trajadura Tojeira DOC

Vinification: The grapes are harvested by hand and destemmed followed by a soft pressing in order to preserve the characteristics aromas. After defecation by cold, the must is inoculated with selected yeasts. The fermentation takes place in stainless steel vats at controlled temperature of between 14-16ºC.

This wine has a Citrine colour, the aroma is elegant, with notes of tropical fruits, citrus and stone fruit and light floral. In the mouth is balanced and complex, with fresh acidity, engaging and persistent finish.

Pairing food: this wine is ideal accompany seafood dishes, oily fish and white meats.

THE MASSETO WINERY UNVEILED

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HyperFocal: 0

An architectural masterpiece quarried from the blue clay

 

Carved deep into the ancient blue clay that underpins the vineyard, the Masseto winery is a physical and symbolic tribute to the Estate’s history and rapid evolution from intuition about the hidden potential of a vineyard site, to internationally acclaimed wine.

‘The Winery is a tribute to the past, present and future of Masseto. It celebrates the incredible story of a wine that was never meant to exist,’ said Masseto CEO, Giovanni Geddes da Filicaja. ‘Years of planning and effort have been dedicated to building the right home for Masseto. One that consolidates three decades of experience, where every aspect has been designed to meet the winemaking team’s highly detailed requirements.’

Technical facilities in the subterranean building, reminiscent of a sacred temple, have been stripped back to low-impact basics. ‘Nothing is missing, and there is no more than necessary,’ said Masseto Estate Director, Axel Heinz. He stressed that winemaking at Masseto, which balances austerity, modernity and tradition, will remain unchanged. ‘Our wine making is about reducing the process, reducing intervention, with a ‘less is more’ philosophy.’

Designed by architects Hikaru Mori and Maurizio Zito of the ZitoMori Studio, the building represents and reinforces Masseto’s discreet but powerful identity. Above ground, only the low lines of the grape reception area and the restored Masseto House emerge from the hill.

Built to incorporate a gravity flow winemaking process, and benefiting from the blue clay’s natural insulation, the structure is symbiotic with the hills and vineyard that surround it. The architects called their underground design concept, The Quarry. ‘To represent the effort required to produce the wine made here, we created a series of spaces – not by construction, but by extraction from the hill’s monolithic mass. The diverse internal volumes, heights and levels are reminiscent of a gold mine as it follows seams of precious metal to the core,’ said Japanese-born architect Hikaru Mori.

Cast-in-place concrete was used for the winery’s architectural framework. Inside, clean lines of glass and steel predominate, balanced by rows of oak barrels. Textured and scored surfaces throughout are a reminder of the extractive construction process, while openings in the walls frame vertical profiles of the vineyard’s inimitable blue clay terroir.

At the very heart of the structure lies the Estate’s wine vault, Masseto Caveau. Bottles of every vintage since 1986 are preserved here, in perfect cellaring conditions, each suspended in its own stainless-steel mesh cradle. There could be no better physical manifestation of the Estate’s history.

The 2018 vintage is the first to be vinified in the Winery, by recently appointed cellar master, Eleonora Marconi.

Masseto, located on the Tuscan coast close to the small village of Bolgheri, is a wine that was never meant to exist. The potential of the slope where the vineyard now sits was finally seen in the 1980’s, when, against all odds, advice and local tradition, the first vines were planted. Intuition paid off. The blue clay, cooling coastal breezes and abundant refracted light from the Tyrrhenian Sea all contribute to Masseto’s intriguing combination of power, elegance and complexity. Masseto has received international acclaim since its birth in 1986. The Estate is controlled by the Frescobaldi Family Group.

 

 

Supertuscan: internationally Tuscan wines

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The origin of Supertuscan goes back to the last forty years: these wines were originated from the strong wish of their producers to express a renewal and an international character.
At the end of the Sixties the Marquis Incisa della Rocchetta, with the help of the ingenious enologist Giacomo Tachis, decided to experiment new methods by producing the Sassicaia, a red wine obtained from Cabernet, Sauvignon and Franc grapes, which were cultivated only in the Castagneto Carducci area (now area of the DOC Bolgheri Sassicaia) and refined in French barrique

supertuscan colli senesi

They had analysed the soil and cleared up that its feautures were very similar to those of the Graves area, near Bordeaux, so they knew that it was not very suitable for Sangiovese, but perfect to cultivate international grapes of a very high quality.
In this way, a new concept of Tuscan wine was born, that is to say a great red wine, longlived and structured, that keeps in itself the Tuscan terroir:

a distinctive and influential wine, able to graft into the souls of the most obstinately French Cabernet, Franc, Syrah and Merlot, making them powerful and strongly able to express the Tuscan soil, by enriching them in their bouquets with scents of underbrush and balsamic herbs and refining them with violet and white flowers fragrances.
These new and more modern wines, received a lukewarm welcome in Italy, while they received great appreciation on the foreign markets from the very beginning, in particular in the USA, where the market was guided by skilful wine influencers and wine tasters such as Robert Parker, who first called them “Supertuscan” and James Suckling, well known for his publications on Wine Spectator.

Nowadays the wines that use Cabernet, Merlot or Syrah grapes, or even only Sangiovese grapes, are included into the Supertuscan category: they have some definite feautures in common, as the full-bodied taste, the longevity and the strong structure, but each one has got its own soul, history and a territory to narrate. In fact, these wines distinguish themselves by being expressions of a creative enology, (not so limited by the disciplinary rules anymore) and also the “children” of a new generation of enologists; they are able to interpret the perfect interaction between the features of a territory and the philosophy of a winery and make us meet it again in our glass.
Exactly as our I Campacci, obtained only with the grapes coming from our small Merlot vineyard.

supertuscan campacci

A crù with great appeal and sensuality, that expresses the international feautures of these varieties (the spiced and jam elements, potential and structure) and the philosophy of our Estate (freshness, richness and strong in tannin because of its aging). It is produced every year in about 6000 bottles, it is a great meditation wine and suitable for a long aging.

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