Freeman Rondinella and Corvina 'Secco' Altura Vineyard 2015
Luis Seabra Indie Xisto Tinto 2019
$82.00 inc. GST
After a decade as winemaker at Niepoort, where he was responsible for some of the best known and highly rated wines to come out of the famed Douro and Porto producer, Luis Seabra decided that he no longer wanted to make wines to someone else’s tastes and specifications. Thus, he began his eponymous winery, and set about shattering preconceptions of what Douro wines represent.
The Indie Xisto is one of a series of wines that Luis makes that exemplify and express the intensely terroir-driven style in which he operates. He is a particularly gifted winemaker, one who sees wine as a medium through which a piece of land can speak. This series of wines is one in which he removes every variable but that of the land itself, and the stark expression of the soil that results is extraordinary. He works exclusively with spontaneous fermentation, native yeasts, and large format tight-grained oak for all the wines in this series.
24 in stock
Description
30% Tinta Roriz, 30% Touriga Franca, 10% Tinta Amarela, 5% Tinta Barroca, 5% Rufete, 5% Touriga Brasileira, 5% Donzelinho Tinto, 5% Malvasia Preta, 5% Touriga Femea. Sustainably farmed single vineyard planted since 1950. Tended in blue schist soil at 510 (1,673 ft) elevation.
Additional Information
| brand | Luis Seabra |
|---|---|
| size | 750ml |
Reviews / Awards / Ratings
“The 2016 Indie Xisto is a blend of 30% Tinta Roriz, 20% Touriga Franca, 15% each of Tinta Barroca and Tinta Amarela, and various others filling out the blend. Sourced from 70-year-old vines in a single vineyard in Alijo at 500 meters in altitude, it was aged for 18 months in used French oak and comes in at 13.2% alcohol. Concentrated but very fresh, this adds velvety texture and ripe fruit. The tannins are ripe, but they provide support for the fruit and will allow this to develop, hopefully adding some complexity along the way. It is smooth but firm just now, but it’s also a bit closed. I’m not sure this will ever match the intensity of flavor on the 2015, but it is clearly not all the way open yet, so we will wait and see. You can drink this now, but you would be better off letting it evolve for two to three years if you can. No one, including the winemaker, knows how this relatively new bottling will age, but it should have no trouble going another decade from now, probably much more. Let’s take that in stages.” – 92+ Points, Mark Squires, The Wine Advocate
Rated: 94 Points by Gary Walsh – Winefront
“From a single c. 70 year old vineyard at 580m in Alijó, planted on blue schist soil (hence much less clay); 30% Tinta Roriz, 30% Touriga Franca, 10% Tinta Amarela, 5% Tinta Barroca, 5% Rufete, 5% Touriga Brasileira, 5% Donzelinho Tinto, 5% Malvasia Preta, 5% Touriga Femea. Welcome to Portugal.
Spiced plum, rosy perfume, some pepper, grilled streak. Medium-bodied, juicy and fresh, yet subtle, clean lines, graphite tannin, and an earthy and inky finish of good length. Expressive and interesting.”
