João Tavares- Rufia Orange (Vinho Branco Curtamente) 2021

The vineyards are not certified organic, but we are farmed under organic and sustainable practices, such as use of copper and sulfur. Flowers and herbs such as chamomile act as fungus repellent. The winery is covered in photovoltaic cells; making us a net exporter of electricity and our wines carbon neutral.

Soil Type(s): Beyond the old granitic soils, this vineyard has also plots with even older origin due to marine sediments, from 500 million years ago, which originated shale clayey rocks soils.

Vineyard sorting and manual triage table after. The bunches pass through the de-stemmer and then spend a total time on skins of 14 days. Fermentation takes place in open 1,20 x 1,5m stainless steel tanks. Only wild yeast is used during spontaneous fermentation. Non-temperature controlled fermentation takes place over 7 days with skin maceration in open tank and then it is racked to finish in barrel. The wine spends 9 months with primary lees contact in 400L neutral barrels but with no stirring. Malolactic fermentation happens during this time. The wines are not fined or filtered and bottled directly from the barrels.

This is João's smallest production wine and is usually the most in demand. The blend will always change based on which grapes in the nursery are coming into maturity.

Hard cheese, especially parmesan, carbonara, chicken tagine, pilaf, pumpkin, squash, teriyaki, Mongolian sauce.

• Central Italian, Moroccan, Caucasian, Japanese, Chinese