Luis Seabra Granito Cru Alvarinho Branco 2023

After a decade as winemaker at Niepoort, where he was responsible for some of the best known and highest 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 Xisto Cru Branco 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. “Cru” translates as “raw” in Portuguese, and the transmission of terroir here is unadulterated and singular. 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.

The Granito Cru Alvarinho is part of the same intensely terroir-driven series through which Luís Seabra strips wine back to its rawest expression of place. "Cru" means "raw" in Portuguese, and here the transmission of terroir is unadulterated and singular — every variable removed except the land itself, worked exclusively with spontaneous fermentation, native yeasts, and large-format, tight-grained oak. Rather than a single vineyard, this is a single-soil Alvarinho — a deliberate choice to make soil type, rather than site, the clearest expression of terroir.

The vines sit in Monção e Melgaço, in Vinho Verde — the birthplace of Alvarinho, in Portugal's northwest, where strong maritime influence lends real acidity to the wines. Planted in 1989, exclusively in granite soil, at 50–150 metres elevation. Sustainably farmed, vinified with nothing but spontaneous fermentation and indigenous yeast, and vegan.

Destemmed and crushed grapes are pressed with no added sulfur and no maceration, then cold-decanted for 48 hours. Fermentation and ageing both take place in oak vats made from Eastern European forest oak — two used 1000L ovals and one new 2000L oval — over a 4-month fermentation that runs through full malolactic. Total ageing is 9 months on lees, left unstirred throughout.

Brilliant straw in colour. The nose is high-toned and intensely mineral — lemon peel, green apple, lemongrass and seashell. The palate carries real weight alongside laser-sharp acidity, with incisive lemon, unripe peach, green apple and green mango at its core, all wrapped in persistent, pervasive minerality.

Rating history: 2024: 93 (The Wine Advocate); 2022: 96 (James Suckling), 92 (Wine Advocate), 90 (Wine Enthusiast); 2021: 96 (Decanter), 93 (Wine & Spirits), 93 (Wine Advocate), 90 (Wine Spectator); 2020: 93 (Wine & Spirits), 91 (Wine Advocate); 2018: 93 (Wine Spectator), 92 (Wine Advocate); 2017: 90 (Wine Advocate); 2016: 92 (Wine Advocate), 90 (Wine Spectator)

Pairing suggestions: Raw or roasted oysters, shellfish, grilled whole snapper.