2022 Quinta do Ameal, Loureiro, Vinho Verde, Portugal.
The ultra pale gold 100% Loureiro Vinho Verde by Quinta do Ameal, which comes in super dry, low alcohol (just about 11%) and brisk, has a light steely body and a fine salty character with zesty lemon/lime, white peach, tart melon, almond, white flowers, delicate herbs and wet stone. This organic and lovely white wine really shines in the glass and is a fabulous Summer wine, great as a aperitif and refresher, but is best with a mix of fresh sea foods, especially oysters, clams, squid and or mussels. Vinho Verde, a region between Lisbon and Porto, is home to many affordable wines, usually a mix of varietals that include Alvarinho (Albarino) and Loureiro, as seen here in this fine and exciting example. The winemaking here is clean and employs exclusively stainless steel tank to promote terroir and varietal purity with absolute transparency and to deliver fresh details. These wines traditionally are drunk young and are highly quaffable no pretense wines, with this Quinta do Ameal providing drinking pleasure, I highly recommend searching it out and enjoying it over the next two to three years.
One of Portugal’s most enjoyable and vibrant white wines, the wines of the Vinho Verde region are outrageously good values and Quinta do Ameal is maybe the best one, year after year, it always delivers a clean, crisp and easy to love wine that any bistro and or sea food place would be happy to have on the wine list. Ameal’s US importer, The Source Imports, notes that José Roquette, the owner of Esporão, Portugal’s largest organic wine company, purchased Quinta do Ameal in 2019 from the recently retired Pedro Araujo. The Quinto do Ameal is located in the heart of the Lima Valley, within Vinho Verde DOC, the most northwesterly zone which borders the Atlantic Ocean, not too far from Lisbon, to the west and separated from Spain by the Minho River to the north. Ameal has 14 organically farmed hectares of Loureiro, with the vines grown on the vineyard’s igneous granite bedrock and sandy topsoil with cool Atlantic breezes that give these wines there mineral notes and vibrancy. The Loureiro grapes are all hand-harvested, whole cluster pressed, naturally fermented over 12-15 days at low temperatures, as the winery notes, and then shortly aged sur-lie in steel to make this classic bottling.
($22 Est.) 91 Points, grapelive