Luis Seabra Xisto Ilimitado Douro Branco 2024

After a decade as winemaker at Niepoort, where he was behind some of the best-known and most highly rated wines to come out of the famed Douro and Port producer, Luís Seabra decided he no longer wanted to make wine to someone else's brief. So he started his own eponymous winery, setting about upending expectations of what Douro wine can be.

Xisto Ilimitado is Seabra's Portuguese answer to the idea of a "village-level" Burgundy — a field blend of six varieties planted across three subzones of the Douro, offering a broad survey of the appellation's schist-driven terroir. The Douro is the oldest demarcated wine region in Western Europe, chartered back in 1756; since 1986, the region's focus has diversified well beyond its fortified Port roots, giving rise to the fine table wines that helped spearhead Portugal's wine presence in the American market in the early 2000s. Seabra's winemaking here is centred on the valley's distinct soil types, and this wine shows just how much stylistic range the region is capable of. Bright, focused and fresh, it's a genuinely great introduction to the new wave of Douro winemaking.

Made from Rabigato, Códega, Gouveio and Viosinho, grown on mica schist at 500–600m elevation in Cima Corgo — a subregion known for some of the sharpest day-to-night temperature swings in Portugal, giving the fruit extended hang-time, with only around 400mm annual rainfall. The vines are 30–45 years old. Fermentation runs 90% in used barrel and 10% in stainless steel, entirely on indigenous wild yeast, followed by 90% barrel/10% steel ageing with a year of lees contact and no bâtonnage.

"It has the lemon-mineral punch of great Burgundy, plus a ripe pear fruitiness, white poppy and remarkable density. This is sleek, contemporary white winemaking of the highest order."

Bright straw yellow in the glass, with stone and orchard fruit on the nose, layered with flinty wet stone and white pepper. The palate is impressively bright and mineral-driven, striking a fine balance between power and lift — lemon, green apple and Bosc pear mingle with floral tones and slate minerality, juicy and mineral all at once.