Grapes: 70% red and 30% white: Tinta Gorda, Tinta Serrana, Bastardo, Rufete, Alvarelhão, Rocheiro, Ocheiro, Verdelho, Malvasia, Bastardo Branco, Posto Branco, Formosa, and more.
Region: Trás-os-Montes, Portugal
Vintage: 2021
Viticulture: Organic
Soil: High altitude, moorland setting. Arid continental climate with moderate influence from the Altlantic. An average of just under 600mm of rain in each year, which mostly happens during the winter and spring.
Vinification: The grapes used to make Saroto Red were hand harvested into 20 kg cases. They were foot trodden in a traditional lagar (old stone or concrete fermentation vessels) and macerated for 4 days allowing the juice to start fermenting naturally with indigenous yeast and without temperature control.
Aging: The grapes were pressed and racked into used French Oak barrels where alcoholic and malolactic fermentations were finished. The wine aged for nine months in the same barrels on fine lees.
Sulfur: Minimal
Fining/Filtering: None
Notes from the Importer: The Arribas Wine Company project began in 2017, when winemakers Frederico Machado and Ricardo Alves decided that the time to start a more personal project had arrived. The quest for diversity and a spot with unique characteristics took them to Bemposta, a small village in the far north of Portugal. This just happened to be near Mogadouro, where the grandparents of one of the founders were born. There they found very old vineyards, some of them recently abandoned.
From the regeneration of their first plot, less than 2 hectares, the first wine of Saroto was made. Saroto is a local term used to designate an animal with its tail cut off. The lizard on the label symbolizes the capacity of regeneration and represents the winemaker’s desire to recover and preserve a rich and diverse heritage that otherwise would be lost.
The grapes used to make Arribas Saroto Branco are hand-harvested and foot-trodden in a traditional stone lagar. They are immediately pressed and racked into used French and Austrian oak barrels. Kept in barrel over lees for 7 months, the juice ferments naturally with indigenous yeast and without temperature control (wild fermentation) finishing both alcoholic and malolactic fermentations. This rosé wine is unfined and unfiltered and may present a deposit over time.
Includes Verdelho, Malvasia, Posto Branco, and Bastardo Branco among others.
