Quinta da Romaneira Pulga 2023
£39.95
The wine
Pulga is complex, seamlessly blending the refreshing touch found in Romaneira's whites with a deep, rich flavour and a classy structure. It really shows off the remarkable white grape varieties of the Douro, especially when grown in the outstanding terroir of the Pulga vineyard.
Pulga is a single vineyard, and the wine is the estate's most serious white. Boal leads the blend, a variety better known in Madeira, and the parcel sits high enough for the nights to stay cool through the Douro summer. Fermented and aged in oak, it has the weight of a serious Chardonnay with an entirely different accent.
The producer
Quinta da Romaneira
View all Quinta da Romaneira winesEstablished in 1757, Quinta da Romaneira is one of the largest single estates in the Douro: 412 hectares with three kilometres of river frontage, of which 86 are planted to vines.
The Douro was the world's first demarcated wine region, mapped and regulated in 1756, so the estate is almost exactly as old as the appellation itself. Its vineyards are cut into terraces on hillsides steep enough that mechanisation is impossible in much of the property, and the soil is schist, a layered rock that splits vertically and lets roots drive deep in search of water. That is what allows vines to survive summers in which the valley regularly exceeds forty degrees.
The many valleys and promontories of the estate give it a range of exposures and several distinct microclimates, which is why single-parcel wines like Liceiras and Mirante make sense here. Both Port and Douro table wine are made, and both are taken equally seriously, which was not always true of Douro estates. The table wines in particular have become some of the most admired in northern Portugal.
