Quinta da Boavista, "Rufia (Branco)" 2020

Dão, Portugal. 35% Bical, 25% Encruzado, 25% Cereal Branco and 15% Malvasia. 

From the winemaker, João Tavares de Pina:

"Made from all indigenous grapes: 35% Bical, 25% Encruzado, 25% Cereal Branco and 15% Malvasia. Spontaneous fermentation lasting 10-12 days in stainless steel followed by extended lees contact. No skin contact at all. But, there’s no type of fining before fermentation: little solids produced during the process are preserved in the juice. We just separate the final part of the press. Normally, white juice is decanted before fermentation. The cloudy appearance results from the nonexistent filtration. The wine ages with the lees, just before bottling. During this time, the cell walls of both bacteria and yeast are broken and release lots of compounds as amino acids… all this, together with the effect produced by malolatic fermentation, gives the wine a nice creamy tactile sensation. Dão is a granitic region (300 Million years), but there is also some clay, clay shale soils with oceanic origin (500 million years), where all our whites are produced. The effect of these clay soils of oceanic origin and the Atlantic influence, with gentle breezes from the sea during summer evenings, very important to reduce temperature during the night (sometimes the difference between day and night can be 20ºC, so, from 35ºC during the day, temperature drops to 15 during the night), produce in the wine a nice salinity.”