Anyone who has followed Alentejo wine over the last few decades will be familiar with Cortes de Cima. This is the project originally founded by a Danish farmer and his Californian wife back in the early 90s that was one of the first to bring the new world style of fruit-driven red wines to Portugal.
The labels featured renderings of grape bunches in a traditional style making the new label design something of a radical departure. But times change and with the winery now in the hands of the daughter of the founders, it would appear that more has changed than just the label design.
Gone is the range of varietal wines that helped Cortes De Cima cement its reputation as a leading Alentejo producer and enter a new reduced range of wines.
This white is the first of the new range that I have tried, and it is indeed interesting. This is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Alvarinho grown on the producer’s west coast vineyard with Viognier grown inland at their Vidigueira vineyard.
The wine is perhaps a little enthusiastically priced at €25.95 (Apolónia), but the quality is there. Enthusiastic too are the tasting notes on the producer’s website, to quote: “…brooding flinty hazelnut…pulsating acidity…briny sea spray finish”. I’m not sure what a flinty hazelnut tastes like but what struck me most about the wine was its huge acidity, in a positive way, with green apple on the nose. An interesting and unusual white wine.
By Patrick Stuart
patrick.stuart@open-media.net
