Chánselus Castes Brancas

In 2020, he didn't do white or red, he only did a mixture of white and red grapes; and in 2021, he came back with the 2021 Cháns e Lus Castes Brancas, from a cool year with almost no summer. It has a profile of a lighter wine, fresher with less alcohol (12.3%). Slow ripening on the grapes kept good acidity, and the development of flavors and influence from the soils are noticeable. He compared 2021 to 2016, a year with a similar climate (also 2009). 2019 was the last year with good volume, but he only produced one wine in 2021, this one, for a total of 4,000 bottles. The wine is aromatic, expressive, pure, crystalline and with a sense of harmony and balance, and it's subtle and with very good persistence and salinity, with less volume, more ethereal. It made me think of a good vintage of the Savagnin from Kenjiro Kagami, with notes of tangerine peel and wet stones, sapid, long and saline, a wine of purity. It's an amazing Ribeiro with expression of the soils, which is a lot clearer in cooler years. Bravo! It was bottled in January 2023.