2021 Anselmo Mendes "Expressoes" Alvarinho Vinho Verde Monção e Melgaço

Professional Reviews

Notes

Anselmo Mendes is one of Portugal’s most revered winemakers. A native son of Monção (which, along with neighboring Melgaço, where his cellar is located, is one of the top Alvarinho crus in the country), he hails from an agricultural family that, like most in the area, dabbled in wine for household production. It wasn’t until after university studies in agronomy that he began to specialize in wine, studying in both Portugal and France and enjoying a rapidly rising star as one of the most sought-after consulting winemakers in Portugal. In 1998, he finally struck out on his own, producing his first own-label wines from rented grapes in the Monção e Melgaço zone, and his (at that time highly unusual) focus on a bone-dry, mineral, serious, no-fizz style rocketed him to the top of the list as Winemaker of the Year in the Revista de Vinhos, Portugal’s chief domestic wine publication. (He has since repeated that accolade.) It was then that he also garnered the charming nickname with which he is still associated today — “Mr. Alvarinho”. The Expressoes is 100% Alvarinho sourced from winemaker Anselmo Mendes’ prized Quinta da Torre. The wine is fermented in used 400L French oak barrels and matured for nine months in the same barrels with some batonnage to enhance the creamy, round mouthfeel.