Herdade do Rocim Nat Cool Fresh From Amphora Red 2025 (1L)
£18.95
The wine
Nat Cool is a Portuguese movement rather than a brand: young, low-alcohol, minimal-intervention wines bottled in litres and meant to be drunk cold and soon. This one is made in talha, the clay amphorae the Alentejo has used since Roman times.
Fermenting and ageing in buried clay is among the oldest winemaking methods in Europe, and the Alentejo never abandoned it. Moreto and Tinta Grossa are local varieties long dismissed as rustic, and in this register they give exactly what is wanted: juicy red fruit, earthy depth and no weight at all. Serve with a chill.
The producer
Herdade do Rocim
View all Herdade do Rocim winesHerdade do Rocim sits between Vidigueira and Cuba in the Baixo Alentejo, a property of some 120 hectares of which 70 are vineyard and ten are olive groves. The Rocim project began in 2000, and the first years went entirely on restructuring the land: preserving the very old vineyards already there, replanting what had been lost and only later building the winery itself.
What has made the estate's reputation since is talha. The practice of fermenting and ageing wine in large clay amphorae buried to the shoulder is native to the Alentejo and predates the Roman occupation, and by the end of the twentieth century it survived in barely a handful of village cellars. Rocim took it seriously when almost nobody else would, and now runs an annual Amphora Wine Day that has drawn producers from across the Mediterranean. The Amphora range is the result: wines of texture, salinity and grip rather than obvious fruit, made from Alentejo varieties most drinkers will never have heard of.
Alongside that sit the everyday Mariana wines, the varietal Indígena Alicante Bouschet, and an Azores project on volcanic basalt that could hardly be further from the Alentejo plains in character.
