A mixture of native white Loureiro and red Vinhão grapes, fermented dry with ambient yeast in beeswax-lined clay amphora. It’s slightly funky at first, with a saline-herbal-earthiness complementing its scent of dried rose petals and potpourri. The pale red robe suggests cranberries and pomegranate, but a smoky meatiness brings it down to earth. Clay-like, almost, reflecting its vessel in which it was born, as if the wine were carrying on a deep conversation between fruit and fire, earth and sea.
11% abv | Aphros works with Michael Skurnik in N.Y. and Winewise in Calif.
Sample tasted at the winery on 19 May 2016.
Read A Conversation With Vasco Croft Of Aphros: Part One and Part Two.
