Herdade Do Esporão, AB Alicante Bouschet 2012, Alentejo, Portugal

Tasting Note: If lingerie could be bottled it’d slip off the shoulders of this wine when you bring it to your lips.

Medium-to-deep intensity ruby in color, this wine has an aromatic nose of black plum, raspberry and black tea leaves.

On the palate, the dry, medium-plus bodied Alicante Bouschet is silky in texture with medium-plus acidity.

Bottle Note: Concept & Vinification – A variety perfectly adapted to Alentejo’s hot climate. Fermented 6 days in 5,000-liter stainless steel tanks at 28°C, aged for 12 months in new American oak barrels. Expected to improve until 2023. Harvest – The dry weather and low winter rainfall delayed the vegetative cycle contributing to a smaller than average grape harvest with deeply concentrated high quality wines. Terroir – Herdade do Esporão benefits from the Mediterranean-continental climate with its intense sun exposure, notoriously warm, summers and cold winters. From “Palmeiras” Vineyard at Perdigões, planted in a deep, dark limestone soils of a clay texture. Grape Variety – A red juice grape of French origin from the 19th century, a cross result of grenache and petit bouschet, introduced in Alentejo in the 1950s. Planted in 2003 with a low production delivers a very pure fruit at once dense and elegantly balanced with mineral acidity.