Aveleda Alvarinho 2018
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#4 Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Best Buy of 2019
With bold citric colors, Aveleda Alvarinho combines the rich body native to the Alvarinho variety with the mineral and citric notes typical of the sub-region. A well-structured white wine with delicious hints of passion fruit and white flowers.
Pairs well with oysters and asparagus in a butter sauce, oily fish like tuna or salmon and vegetables au gratin.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This youthful alvarinho feels supple and round, fattened up by the fruit richness of cantaloupe and kumquats. Granitic acidity tightens it up, lifting the fragrant fruit through a clean finish. This wine’s drinking window will begin to open in the summer of 2020, or sooner, if you decant it.
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Wine Enthusiast
The ripe, creamy character of Alvarinho from the Monção and Melgaço subregion of Vinho Verde gives this wine a smooth character that is sharpened by touches of minerality. It is packed with refreshing fruitiness from the lingering juicy acidity.
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Wilfred
Wong
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Today the Guedes family still owns 100% of the company, always committed to maintaining this family legacy which spans several generations. The son of Manuel Pedro Guedes, Fernando Guedes da Silva da Fonseca (1871-1946) continued his father’s work, significantly increasing the production capacity at the Estate. He had 7 children and it was Roberto Van-Zeller Guedes (1899-1966) who led the family business, dedicating his whole life to working at Aveleda. The 4th generation includes the six children of Roberto Van-Zeller Guedes: Fernando, Luís, António, Maria Isabel, Maria Helena and Roberto – who today manage the company’s future, together with the following generation: 14 cousins who make up the 5th generation.
Bright and aromatic with distinctive floral and fruity characteristics, Albariño has enjoyed a surge in popularity and an increase in plantings over the last couple of decades. Thick skins allow it to withstand the humid conditions of its homeland, Rías Baixas, Spain, free of malady, and produce a weighty but fresh white. Somm Secret—Albariño claims dual citizenship in Spain and Portugal. Under the name Alvarinho, it thrives in Portugal’s northwestern Vinho Verde region, which predictably, borders part of Spain’s Rías Baixas.
Best known for intense, impressive and age-worthy fortified wines, Portugal relies almost exclusively on its many indigenous grape varieties. Bordering Spain to its north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean on its west and south coasts, this is a land where tradition reigns supreme, due to its relative geographical and, for much of the 20th century, political isolation. A long and narrow but small country, Portugal claims considerable diversity in climate and wine styles, with milder weather in the north and significantly more rainfall near the coast.
While Port (named after its city of Oporto on the Atlantic Coast at the end of the Douro Valley), made Portugal famous, Portugal is also an excellent source of dry red and white Portuguese wines of various styles.
The Douro Valley produces full-bodied and concentrated dry red Portuguese wines made from the same set of grape varieties used for Port, which include Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (Spain’s Tempranillo), Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca and Tinto Cão, among a long list of others in minor proportions.
Other dry Portuguese wines include the tart, slightly effervescent Vinho Verde white wine, made in the north, and the bright, elegant reds and whites of the Dão as well as the bold, and fruit-driven reds and whites of the southern, Alentejo.
The nation’s other important fortified wine, Madeira, is produced on the eponymous island off the North African coast.