(After All, We Didn't Pluck the Castelão)
Technical Information
Classification: Alentejo Regional Wine
Type: Red
Year: 2021
Alcohol: 13%
Grape Varieties: Castelão
pH: 3.70
Production: 3200 wax-plated bottles to be released in December 2023.
Concept
The swan song was inevitable for this unloved plot of Monte da Bica! But nature responded, not with the typical power of Castelão, but with an unusual elegance.... We didn't uproot the Castelão after all.
“Joy in departure, as longing is for those who remain.”
In the Vineyard
An 18 years-old area of 0.34ha located in Lavre.
The Mediterranean climate provides a high temperature range and the soils of the transition from clay to sand, typical of this end of the Alentejo, allow that, despite low production numbers, conditions are created for a ripening of great aromatic expression and freshness retention.
Harvested by hand, transported to the winery in small 12 kg boxes.
Productivity: 4500kg/Ha.
In the Cellar
Selected bunches undergo gravity-fed fermentation in small presses at controlled temperatures for 7 to 10 days. After alcoholic fermentation, malolactic fermentation follows, during a couvesion of approximately 15 days. After pressing, all the wine goes into French oak barrels.
Ageing
10 months in Tronçais barrels.
Winemaker's Note
Castelão equals a headache for many and a lesser wine for others, finds itself in this case as a revisit to the source of elegance and bone of the great Alentejos of yesteryear. Beyond the principles of aesthetics, it transports us to a distant past with a seriousness of great delicacy.
Winemaker
Paolo Nigra.
