Vizinho Vinhateiro

Dão, Portugal

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Short Summary

Born into the famous Hugel family in Alsace’s Riquewihr, wine was always in the cards for Charlotte Hugel; for Paul Chevreux, a Jura native, the calling was both happenstance and seemingly inevitable. After mechanical engineering, art, and finally viticulture school in Beaune, Paul met Charlotte at Graham’s Port house, where wine (and Charlotte) turned into an obsession. After working in the Côte d’Or, his fate was sealed. Young and thinking about where they wanted to live out their days, they settled into a rustic and nature-friendly, neighbor-friendly life in Portugal’s Dão region, close to Viseu, every night in their ancient granite rock and Portuguese tiled house filled with Paul’s wood-fired kitchen alchemy of local raw products surrounded by their vines, animals and horses, which Charlotte trains professionally. Their 2.5ha of vineyards are farmed organically, though uncertified, mostly on sandy granite at around 400 meters, with mostly massale selections. Paul wants the wines to recall the old Dão, sometimes reflecting them completely. Portuguese locals have told him that their wines remind them of making wine with their grandfathers. The reds can transport us to an alternate universe of the almost mythical lands from Beaujolais down through Côte-Rôtie. These are wines made by very good cooks in both the kitchen and the cellar: foot-trodden whole clusters in old granite lagar before being fermented and aged in old French oak.

Full Length Story

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Vizinho Vinhateiro Tinto Portuguese red wine bottle with blue watercolor artistic label

Vizinho Vinhateiro - 2024 Vinho ‘Tinto’

Price: $78.00
Size: 750ml
Availability: 

Out of stock

Type of Wine: Red
Grape(s): 100% Touriga Nacional
Style: Rustic, Medium Body

GROWER OVERVIEW

Born into the famous Hugel family in Alsace’s Riquewihr, wine was always in the cards for Charlotte Hugel; for Paul Chevreux, a Jura native, the calling was both happenstance and seemingly inevitable. After mechanical engineering, art, and finally viticulture school in Beaune, Paul met Charlotte at Graham’s Port house, where wine (and Charlotte) turned into an obsession. After working in the Côte d’Or, his fate was sealed. Young and thinking about where they wanted to live out their days, they settled into a rustic and nature-friendly, neighbor-friendly life in Portugal’s Dão region, close to Viseu, every night in their ancient granite rock and Portuguese tiled house filled with Paul’s wood-fired kitchen alchemy of local raw products surrounded by their vines, animals and horses, which Charlotte trains professionally. Their 2.5ha of vineyards are farmed organically, though uncertified, mostly on sandy granite at around 400 meters, with mostly massale selections. Paul wants the wines to recall the old Dão, sometimes reflecting them completely. Portuguese locals have told him that their wines remind them of making wine with their grandfathers. The reds can transport us to an alternate universe of the almost mythical lands from Beaujolais down through Côte-Rôtie. These are wines made by very good cooks in both the kitchen and the cellar: foot-trodden whole clusters in old granite lagar before being fermented and aged in old French oak.

VINEYARD DETAILS

Tinto comes from a field blend of about 40 indigenous varieties across all 11 plots with an average vine age of 70–80 years on various exposures, mostly east-facing, on mild slopes with traditional wide terraces at around 400m on sandy granite with shallow to deep topsoil.

CELLAR NOTES

100% whole-bunch, naturally fermented with pigeage and pumpovers at a maximum of 33°C with a 15-day maceration before pressing. Aged 12 months in used 228L oak barrels, with each barrel bottled separately, and neither fined nor filtered. 23mg/L added sulfites before bottling.