Antonio Madeira Dão Branco 2021
$72.00 inc. GST
AROMA: Yellow stonefruit and white field flowers
PALATE: Tasty, complex aromas, fruit, flowers, lactic and mineral, fresh and crystalline, elegant and full- bodied saline mouth. Long, intense and mineral finish (granite).
FOOD MATCH: Grilled fish or shellfish, Tapas.
Grape Variety: Field blend of 20 native grape varieties, based on 90% of Siria, Fernão Pires, Bical, Arinto, Encruzado, Malvasia Fina and Cerceal.
Drinking window: 2021-2030
Alc. 12, 20%
59 in stock
Description
António Madeira is French of Portuguese descent, and his family roots are in the Serra da Estrela, Portugal’s highest mountain range located in the upper Dão region.
António believes the heart of Dão lies in this mountainous region, and that the fine, fresh, mineral wines you can produce here – which he refers to as the ‘Grands Crus of the Dão highlands’ – have great ageing potential. Madeira is a keen advocate of working the vineyards manually and organically, “to give life to the soils,” so the roots go deep (communicating with the mother rock) and the indigenous yeast population thrives. It is, he said, the way to express “minerality and all the flavours of the landscape.” He’s crafting phenomenal, terroir-focused wines and showing the potential of this often overlooked region.
His winemaking philosophy is simply to respect the grapes and the natural environment. Grapes are hand harvested and winemaking is gentle, aiming for minimal extraction. Using only 500l barrels whose oak has been very slowly toasted and stainless steel vats. Cultivating 30 different plots from 15 different vineyards totalling 6/7 hectares of vines. This is Burgundy scale parcellation! Most vineyards are located in the foothills of the Serra d’Estrela, but some are actually higher in the mountains. All of his wines are co-fermented field blends, using indigenous yeast and very little sulphur. If there’s a through line in his wines it would be a touch of salinity with ample freshness, an earthy quality like the first moments after it rains. Antonio Madeira is passionate about the traditions and heritage of the Dao’s Serra Da Estrela sub-zone and has nearly single-handedly rescued and preserved some of its most historical vineyards from abandonment.
Organic and biodynamic practices.
2021 was a year impacted by important rains on the Harvest period (more than 100mm in september). 2021 are low alcohol wines. 2021 was a fantastic year with fresh ripe grapes. The white Branco 2021 comes from 27 years old vineyards (Encruzado, Bical and Cerceal) and from old vineyards (50/70 years old) where we found field blends of 20 autochthonous grape varieties, some of them forgotten varieties. The 2021 vintage is now perfectly ready to drink even if it will continue to age well for several years in the bottle. It’s piercingly pure as well as complex: a little bit smoky, with citrus and green fruits and a hint of cut cedarwood. The acidity is notably fresh and the texture as well as the flavour are deliciously dry, almost chalky, until the very end, when it balances it out with an unexpected creamy impression.
Additional Information
| brand | Antonio Madeira |
|---|---|
| size | 750ml |
| vintage | 2021 |
| Organic | Organic and biodynamic practices |
Reviews / Ratings / Awards
Jancis Robinson
Antonio Madeira Dão Branco 2021- 17.00 / 20 Points
Full bottle 1,357 g. Fruit from many small field-blend vineyards owned by local farmers, farmed without herbicides or chemical fertilisers, some fully organic, but harvested by hand by Madeira’s own team. 80% of the vines are 20–30 years old, the rest more than 60 years old. All in the Serra da Estrela subregion. The grapes are harvested in the early morning to be cool. They are destemmed and pressed. The skins and juice macerate in the press for about 3–4 hours. The juice is then racked to a stainless-steel tank to decant for 24 hours and clarify. It is then racked off the deposit into a combination of wood and stainless steel to ferment. All the barrels are older oak of various sizes though Madeira is moving to 500 and 600 litres.
Lightly smoky/cedarwood aroma, suggesting a touch of positive reduction. But also the stoniness that comes from granite soils. Underneath those complexing notes there’s pure, piercing citrus and green fruits. There’s marked tension and a slight chalky effect in the dry texture. Seems austere – in a good way – and there’s no lack of fruit at the core. Bone dry and a touch salty on the finish. Just so salivating. And then an unexpected creaminess at the very end of the long finish. Piercing purity.
– Julia Harding MW
