Maçanita, Irmãos e Enólogos, Douro Branco

Made from three indigenous Portuguese white varieties, this is a vibrant, fresh and engaging white that has balancing body and structure and a long, aromatic finish.

Arinto is a grape that give Sauvigno Blanc-like flavours of grassy green apples; Gouveio is like Godello so it adds ripe, apricot and stone-fruit flavours; while Viosinho is a low-yielding variety that gives high quality and rich texture with fragrant floral notes. What a lovely blend!

It's a cracking wine that delivers sunshine at 12.5% alcohol, which is no mean feat in the current climate. Aged in stainless steel tanks for six months, the grapes are grown in the Cima Corgo and Baixa Corgo subzones at altitudes up to 500 metres above sea level, which really assists the crispness and acidity in the wine.

António Maçanita is a very widely travelled and well worked winemaker and consultant with projects all over Portugal. This is a lovely story that came to being because he wanted to get to know the great Douro region, but didn't know where or how to begin. He contacted his sister, who is also a winemaker, and she said the same thing! Together they have found parcels of vines and old vineyards that they believe show their own version of the region in the bottles that they produce.

These are excellent wines and are focused on the purity of the fruit that the Douro soils are able to yield as well as the charm from the Portuguese climate.

Working in the Cima Corgo and Baixa Corgo subzones of the Douro, this is a project that clearly seeks high quality. These old vineyard plantings are high in altitude and produce fruit of serious quality, not destined for bulk wine production, but for the wineries that have built the reputation that the region enjoys. This is the right ethos for anyone anywhere in the world, but is certainly the only one for a region such as this: there are no weedy, flabby or also-ran wines in the Douro, not really. It's one of the oldest quality wine regions in the world and this project is a very fine addition to its story, as much as the Douro is part of the story of the Maçanitas!