Contacto

Distinction :

91 / 100 R. Parker - Wine Advocate
The 2024 Contacto Alvarinho is part of a joint venture with the Symington family, but the brand has existed since 2008, and the Symingtons have had 50% of the brand since 2023. The concept here comes from the skin contact, which varies depending on the acidity and the ripeness; in very warm years, they avoid full skin contact because it lowers acidity. Here we're talking 12 hours at 12 degrees Celsius for 70% of the grapes, so it's not at all an "orange" wine. In fact, the color is as pale as the Muros Antigos. The difference here is the soils where the grapes grow—in the Quinta da Torre, the soils are alluvial (still granitic) but with a little more clay (8%) and more resistance to drought. It started quite shy, but the wine is more aromatic and floral; it has more volume and is more concentrated, because of the soils and the skin contact. It comes in at 12.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.3 and seven grams of acidity—a little of those factors is what happens with the alluvial soils, but the higher pH is because there's more potassium for the grapes and the acidity is also higher; but it's more because of the temperature, which in the Quinta da Torre, a valley, is lower at night than in the slopes from Melgaço, where the grapes from Muros Antigos come from.