Quinta da Fonte Souto, Florão Red 2018, Symington Family Estates

From the highly regarded Portalegre area in the northern Alentejo.  This is a cracking value with rich yet fresh overtones of hedgerow fruits, cherry, spice and wild herbs.

The Florão Red represent the most approachable wine style from the Fonte Souto estate, made with all the attention to detail and care of the other estate wines, but with a more youthful profile intended for drinking young. Its freshness, balance and structure clearly identify it as wines born of the unique Fonte Souto terroir.

32% Aragonez
25% Trincadeira
22% Cabernet Sauvignon
19% Alfrocheiro
2% Alicante Bouschet/Syrah

The hand-picked grapes are placed in small, shallow boxes and taken to the on-site winery. Manual sorting is followed by destemming and gentle crushing after which grapes are transferred to the fermentation vats. Fermentations are individually monitored, and the temperature and macerations are adjusted to maximise the potential of each fermenting batch.

The 207-hectare Quinta da Fonte Souto was acquired by the Symington family in 2017 and is their first vineyard outside the Douro.  Lying on the slopes of the São Mamede Range at an altitude of 500 metres in the Alentejo sub-region of Portalegre, the property benefits from cooler and wetter conditions than the hot Alentejo plain. The Fonte Souto wines express the freshness and elegance provided by the altitude, as well as the structure and complexity from the estate’s extensive collection of mature, low-yielding vines.