Adega de Colares Chão Rijo Branco, Lisboa 2021

The Adega de Ramisco co-operative is a big deal in the Portuguese region of Colares on the Atlantic coast, making 51% of the wine produced there, though this is a dip from the days between 1934 and 1994 when the Junta Nacional dos Vinhos responsible for regulating the wine industry required that 100% of all wine from Colares was made at the Adega.

Viticulturist and oenologist Francisco Figueiredo oversees production at the beautiful 19th century cellars and he is a local boy dedicated to preserving the unique characteristics of the vines and wines of Colares, themselves the product of a unique terroir.

Colares is the most westerly wine region in Europe, a sliver of land edged by rugged cliffs on the Atlantic coast north-west of Lisbon, where the soils are sand or clay dominated. In the early 20th century, when the rest of Europe was trying to get over the devastating effects of the phylloxera louse, Colares was largely protected because of the sandy soils which inhibited the pest and the wine was much in demand all over the continent. Indeed, part of the reasoning behind the stringency of the Junta regulations mentioned above was the authorities desire to protect the good name and market of Colares wines from unscrupulous adulteration and mislabelling from outside the region, in those days a by no-means unheard of practice.

Today many of the vines in the sandier soils are a century or more old and remain ungrafted, and in alliance with the effects of the nearby ocean provide unique circumstances for growing two rare native grape varieties, the malvasia de Colares and ramisco. In addition the vineyard work here is very traditional, eschewing the use of chemicals, leaving vines untrained until the summer gets very hot at which time the canes are lifted to prevent the hot sand scorching the grapes. The vines are protected from the Atlantic winds by stone walls and cane fences. It almost goes without saying that all work is done by hand. In the winery some new methods have been introduced, such as temperature controlled stainless steel vats, slower fermentations and longer skin contact for whites, but otherwise things remain old-school. Natural yeasts are used, and old wooden vats (including some foudres from Brazil) are used for maturation.