Antonio Madeira Dão Vinhas Velhas Branco 2022
$95.00 inc. GST
AROMA: Lovely citrus fruit core and flint, peaches, and salt.
PALATE: Medium- to full-bodied, with rich and enveloping flavours, precise and vibrant. Textured and layered with great harmony.
FOOD MATCH: Freshly shucked Sydney rock oysters, grilled oily fish.
Grape Variety: Siria, Fernão Pires, Bical, Encruzado, Malvasia Fina, Arinto and Cerceal.
Drinking window: 2025-2035+
Alc. 13,00%
This is as good as any white Burgundy Premier Cru you want to put in front of me.
Neal Martin @ Vinous
Neal Martin @ Vinous
96 Points No.1 in JamesSuckling.com Top 100 Wines of Portugal 2024
Aromas of flint, peaches, citrus and salt. Intense and energetic, the palate is medium- to full-bodied, with rich and enveloping Flavors. Simultaneously precise and vibrant. Textured and layered with great persistence. Incredible harmony. This is a blend of cerceal, encruzado, bical, siria, fernao pires and others of around 50 to 100 years old. The wine ferments in a combination of tanks (70%) and barriques. It then ages for one year in 500-liter French oak and around another year in stainless steel. This wine completes malolactic fermentation. The vineyards are biodynamic. One of the great wines of the region. Drink now or hold.
Jacobo Garcia-Andrade Llamas – Senior Editor
3rd September 2024
.
Organic and biodynamic practices.
87 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.
The white Vinhas Velhas 2022 comes from all the vineyards cultivated by Antonio Madeira, aged from 50 up to 130 years old, where we found field blends of around 20 autochthonous grape varieties, some of them forgotten varieties. 80% of the field blend is Siria, Fernão Pires, Bical, Encruzado, Malvasia Fina, Arinto and Cerceal. This wine expresses the character and elegance of the land that witnessed its birth and takes us on a journey through time to discover the aromas and flavours of Serra da Estrela foothills, just as they were back in the time of our forefathers. This wine is complex and refined with lovely citrus fruit core and some ripe apple and pear notes. It’s quite mineral and layered with depth and complexity and subtle notes of toast, spice and lanolin. The texture and saline minerality here are fantastic. Such a multidimensional wine with lovely depth and weight.
Additional Information
| brand | Antonio Madeira |
|---|---|
| size | 750ml |
| vintage | 2020 |
Reviews / Ratings / Awards
JamesSuckling.com
Dão Vinhas Velhas Branco 2022 – 96 / 100 Points
No.1 in JamesSuckling.com Top 100
Aromas of flint, peaches, citrus and salt. Intense and energetic, the palate is medium- to full-bodied, with rich and enveloping Flavors. Simultaneously precise and vibrant. Textured and layered with great persistence. Incredible harmony. This is a blend of cerceal, encruzado, bical, siria, fernao pires and others of around 50 to 100 years old. The wine ferments in a combination of tanks (70%) and barriques. It then ages for one year in 500-liter French oak and around another year in stainless steel. This wine completes malolactic fermentation. The vineyards are biodynamic. One of the great wines of the region. Drink now or hold.
–
Jacobo Garcia-Andrade Llamas – Senior Editor
(3rd September 2024).
VINOUS BY NEAL MARTIN
Dão Vinhas Velhas Branco 2022 – 95 / 100 Points
Cellar Favorite: 2022 António Madeira Branco Vinhas Velhas
I vividly recall a bottle of António Madeira’s 2017 Branco Vinhas Velhas I encountered five or six years ago. It was a revelation in terms of what white Portuguese wine can achieve. On a recent return to Solar dos Presuntos, Lisbon’s go-to restaurant for any wine-lover, I ordered Madeira’s 2022 Branco Vinhas Velhas. Our sommelier grinned, knowing the treat in store. Once again, I was blown away.
This flagship white comes from parcels of vines in the Dão region that exceed 80 years of age, a blend that includes Siria, Fernão Pires, Bical, Encruzado and Cerceal. Around 15% is aged in French oak, with the rest done in stainless steel. The 2022 presents silvery glints in the glass as the bouquet explodes with intense mineral-driven Japanese yuzu, limoncello and quince aromas, all neatly wrapped up in a nuanced veil of reduction. It has scintillating delineation and evokes images of freshly shucked oyster shells and sea cave. The palate is just as arresting, brimming with energy and tension. Again, there is a subtle reduction at play, one that would make Jean-François Coche proud. There is so much depth of flavour here. That marine theme continues, with notes of tangerine and yuzu on the finish. The only negative? I spent the rest of my time in Lisbon desperately searching for another bottle to buy to no avail! This is as good as any white Burgundy Premier Cru you want to put in front of me, and likewise, whilst it dishes out pleasure, it will evolve over the next 12 to 15 years.
