Exuberant fruity aromas of apricot, peach and pineapple with some subtle honeysuckle fragrance in the background. On the palate, the wine offers up zesty, crisp fruit flavors with lively freshness and saline minerality. The year’s relatively cool growing cycle shows through in the wine’s balance and elegance.
Vineyard Notes
Following a succession of very hot and dry years in the Douro, the 2021 growth cycle and harvest were some of the coolest in recent years. While large areas of Europe experienced extreme heat (with July being the hottest ever recorded in the continent), the Douro experienced an unusually cool summer with none of the heat waves that have become common in the region. Moderate conditions in 2021 encouraged slower, gradual maturations with balanced ripening, while the harvest itself was defined by three key periods of rain impacting our picking schedule. The remarkably cool nights contributed to excellent acidity and very good color in the wines. The 2021 harvest was drawn out over six weeks, contrastingly sharply with that of 2020, which lasted less than a month.
Production Notes
After de-stemming and a light crushing, the must undergoes a process of clarification. This allows us to obtain the required features for an ideal fermenting process in stainless steel vats, at a controlled temperature
around 61 °F. During the following aging stage, and up until bottling, the contact of wine with oxygen is minimized, for preserving primary aromas as much as possible.
Winemaker Notes
Charles Symington, Pedro Correia and Hugo Almeida assisted by the Symington DOC Douro winemaking team.