Producer: Bojo do Luar
Category: Wine - Still - Red
Region: Vinho Verde, Portugal
Appellation: Vinho Verde
Features: Pétillant naturel
Notes
100% Espadeiro sourced from Rui Paiva, nephew of Biodynamic producer Fernando Paiva. Rui has 4 hectares of mostly 20-year-old vines in the Vinho Verde area of Felgueiras. The harvest was done by three generations, Rui, his 80-year-old father and his nephew. Grapes were placed on 20kg boxes and taken to Bojo do Luar cellar, 7km away. Upon arrival, the grapes were destemmed and moved into "ta/has" (100-year-old, 1.100L amphoras) and stumped by foot. To each amphora, 1kg of ground chestnut flowers was added and immediately mixed into the mass. The fermentation started spontaneously after four days and continued slowly for one month. The wine was kept macerating in ta/has, from the second week of October until midJanuary, when it was moved to steel tanks and bottled in March, unfiltered with S02 added at bottling (30ppm).
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
The Bojo do Luar project came to life during a trip Savio made to the Vinho Verde region. Here he met Fernando Paiva, a biodynamic producer who has been experimenting with adding ground chestnut flowers to the grapes and must before fermentation began. Meanwhile he’s halted using SO2 altogether since 2017.
Fernando is a regional reference for non-interventionist winemaking. He was the first Portuguese producer to acquire the DEMETER certification and through him Savio met another producer, Antonio Sousa, who practiced biodynamic viticulture, but still used traditional and conventional winemaking methods in the cellar.
Savio was undeterred and saw this as an opportunity: to use the traditional autochthonous varietals of Northern Portugal, and apply his knowledge and experience of many decades working with French producers, mainly in Burgundy and Loire. With Antonio’s winemaking experience and openness to experiment using a non-intervention approach in the cellar, the Bojo do Luar wines started to take shape. The region has a mostly cool temperate climate throughout Spring, then very warm days, and cool nights until the harvest in September. Five red grape varietals and three whites were chosen for their natural high levels of tartaric acids and low PH.
The parcels are located near the Tâmega river, with deep granitic soils and south-south-western exposure, not too far from where it empties into the Douro River. Each grape varietal was vinified separately in stainless steel and concrete. As stabilizer, one kilo of ground chestnut leaves was added per each ton of grape, before fermentation starts. There was minimal intervention throughout the entire process in the cellar. Once the blend for each wine was defined, only 10g/l of SO2 was added at bottling.