Mixtura Green Label, Independent Wines 2020

A fabulous wine that is the best wine made at this new estate, the Green label is from a single vineyard planted to Albarino in the Melgaco region. The wine spends 12 months in a single foudre on its lees ahead of 12 months in a concrete tank. Just 3,372 bottles were made. Bright lemon colour. The nose is vibrant and tightly coiled, with lime zest and mandarin oil with a hint of struck flint. Lithe, with great energy on the palate, the same limey, orangey citrus tones come through. Salty, with great depth and mineral intrigue, this is a very fine Albarino that is gorgeous now, and will drink beautifully over the next 5+ years.

The same Albariño used for the 2018 Mixtura Gold was bottled separately in 2020 for the first time to create the 2020 Mixtura Green, sourced from a certified organic vineyard in Melgaço (Portugal) and sold as wine from Europe (legally, this is its designation). It fermented with indigenous yeasts in a new 2,450-liter Stockinger cask, where it matured with the lees for one year and was then transferred to concrete for one more year. It has notes of nuts, orange peel and freshly cut grass, smoky, with the creaminess of new oak (which should diminish in future vintages), which kind of masks the character of the variety and makes the wine quite oaky. But it's an elegant and quality oak, and the 13.5% alcohol of the wine also gives it a certain creaminess. In the finish, I see the dry chalky sensation from the granite soils. Let's see in future years when the effect of the foudre is less... This is too oaky for my taste; it's very good quality but too oaky. 3,395 bottles were filled in August 2022. I previewed the 2022 that had just been taken out of the third-use foudre and put into concrete, and the wine was another story...

Certified organic. Winemaker Gutier Seijo Otero works with vineyards and native grapes that form the landscape and cultural history along the Miño River. Hand-picked Alvarinho grapes come from a single, north-facing parcel of 65 year-old, pergola-trained vines near the village of Penso. Fermented spontaneously in Austrian oak foudre before being racked to Italian concrete eggs where it is aged for 12 months. None of this is on the (black, enigmatic) label nor on the black back label!
Very intense fruit. Lots of raw character but still embryonic. Early in 2024 this should be very exciting. Not a bargain but reverberant with lots of interest and detail. Real impact on the palate. But for the moment the trans-Minho version, so-called White as opposed to Green version, is more compelling.