Quinta do Javali Clos Fonte do Santo Stone Vineyard '19

Quinta do Javali is a family-owned farm spanning 18 hectares (44 acres) along the left bank of the Douro River. The farm has a winemaking tradition dating back to the 17th century and has been in the Mendes family since 1982. The estate is dedicated to the cultivation of indigenous Duoro grape varieties, with two branches of wine production.

While the older generation typically preferred denser and more powerful wines, certainly with more alcohol, in recent years, António Mendes has tasted the future, so to speak. The family has made significant investments in several of the Quinta’s vineyards to convert them to fully organic and biodynamic farming (horse plowed and wild pig (Javali) tilled), making Javali the only biodynamic producer in the valley. His intention here is to signify that the Douro, too, can produce incredible wines of terroir that are lighter and fresher, and this pursuit has led him to vinify subplots and varieties separately, and even to use cement eggs made from powdered schist dug directly from the vineyards.

This wine is from a 3.5-hectare midslope area cradling the fonte and rising just above it, and the land is marked by a few stand-alone cherry trees anchoring the corner of the clos. The wine is a field blend of more than 30 varieties. The grapes were manually harvested and fermented with whole clusters, in steel lagar. Malolactic fermentation occurred in a combination of old French oak barrels and stainless steel. The wine was aged for 12 months and was lightly filtered.