Amongst wine connoisseurs the name Zambujeiro is all about red wine, and very good red wine, produced at a Swiss-owned winery near Borba in the Alentejo. The premium Zambujeiro label, a wine designed for drinking no less than five years after bottling, is one of the greatest wines of the Alentejo, a rich and concentrated red made from the best grapes of each year’s harvest.
In the mid range they have the Terras do Zambujeiro label, another excellent Alentejo red but this time a more easy drinking wine with full fruit on the nose and soft, well-rounded tannins, ready for drinking a few years earlier than its big brother.
These are the wines I have always known Zambujeiro for and it was not until I spotted this Monte do Zambujeiro label, the winery’s entry level offering on the shelf at Apolónia last week, that I realised they also produce white wine.
Priced at €10.95 this in fact is the result of a very small production of white grapes at this heavily red-focused winery. Only 5,000 to 10,000 bottles of the white are produced, compared to 50,000 to 60,000 bottles of the entry level Monte do Zambujeiro red, 30,000 to 40,000 bottles of the mid-range Terras do Zambujeiro red and 5,000 to 8,000 bottles of the premium Zambujeiro label.
One could be forgiven for thinking that this white Zambujeiro is something of an afterthought at the winery – one of the few in the Alentejo that does not even produce a rosé – but the quality of this wine certainly does justice to the Zambujeiro name.
Produced from equal quantities of Arinto and Antão Vaz and matured for five months on the fine lees, the wine shows great freshness with floral and citric notes on the nose and a soft fruity texture in the mouth.
A perfect accompaniment for grilled fish.
By PATRICK STUART patrick.stuart@open-media.net
