Tapada Do Chaves 2018 Vinhas Velhas Vinho Branco, Alentejo, Portugal

"The 2018 Tapada do Chaves Branco Vinhas Velhas comes from the ungrafted 120-year-old vines first planted by Senhor Chaves in 1901. This wine is profound but will greatly benefit from time in the cellar—a long time. It carries many similarities to the first white in the range, except that it’s denser and more concentrated. One could simply retaste this wine for a month and add, brick by brick, a new tasting note with each soft turn of its evolution. To drink it quickly would be to miss witnessing its splendor. There are few cases imported because there are few made from these historic, nationally-treasured vines. It is indeed a little expensive, but in twenty or thirty years you’ll be happy to have captured a few bottles to share with your kids or grandkids."  The Source Imports

Tapada do Chaves’s legacy in Portugal’s Alentejo is legendary, though there were many speed bumps along the way, such as Salazar’s dictatorship, and the sale of the estate in the late 1990s to a sparkling wine company that faltered on quality for decades. In 2017, with the purchase by Fundação Eugénio de Almeida, led by one of Portugal’s most celebrated oenologists, Pedro Baptista (known for the highly coveted Pera Manca wines), it started to regain its footing. Biodynamic farming was immediately incorporated on this unique granite massif on the side of Serra de São Mamade Mountain that towers over the flatter lands typical in Alentejo. The whites grown from vineyards planted in 1903 and massale selections replanted some forty years ago are a blend of Arinto, Assario, Fernão Pires, Tamarez and Roupeiro (among others), fermented and aged in steel and old French oak barrels.