Encruzado is an indigenous Portuguese white grape variety with a lot of character, which presents this in the glass with increasing maturity. Its elegant bouquet exudes scents of yellow apple, hay flowers, light blossoms and white currants. On the palate, it presents itself with refreshing citrus notes, verveine and moist stone. A combination of freshness, subtle minerality and astringency, fine toasty aromas, power and liveliness. A pleasure with Bacalhão or also with chicken from the oven.

Attributes

Origin:	Portugal / Dão
Grape variety:	Encruzado
Label:	Vegan, Certified integrated production
Ripening potential:	1 to 8 years
Drinking temperature:	10 to 12 °C
Food Pairing:	Italian antipasti, Bouillabaisse, Whole baked fish, Paella
Vinification:	fully destemmed, soft pressing, fining
Harvest:	hand-picking, in several rounds (tries)
Maturation:	in partly new and used barriques/ Pièces, bâtonnage
Bottling:	filtration
Volume:	13.5 %
Note:	Contains sulphites

Producer

Quinta dos Roques

Grape variety

Encruzado

Smooth even in the poorest soil

Some of the best and most expensive wines come from the Dão area, a picturesque spot in Portugal threaded with rivers. Dão is one of the oldest wine cultivation regions in Portugal, and provides ideal climatic conditions for the Encruzado grape. Summers are long and hot, the nights are cool, and winters tough: ideal prerequisites for elegant wines. The area is enclosed and protected on three sides by granite mountains, and the vast majority of vines grow among granitic rock. The white Encruzado, however, thrives in the East of the region in slate soils. Each soil shapes the wine in its own way, but all wines from grapes grown in slate soils have one thing in common: a wonderfully crisp minerality. This provides structure and slightly salty components on the palate.

The barren soils allow only low yields per hectare, from 15 to 30 hectoliters, which further enables the wines to become very rich in body, supple, and accented by fruit. Encruzado is the most-planted white wine variety in Dão, planted on around 200 hectares.

Region

Dão

Dão: noble crus from the highlands

The wine world eyes Dão, the Portuguese wine region in the northern foothills of the Estrela Mountains (Serra da Estrela), with greater interest with each passing year. A cool climate, sparse granite soils and first-class native varieties result in wines which brilliantly master the balancing act between fruitfulness and wholesome structure. The majority of the wines here are assemblages. The red Touriga Nacional and white Encruzado varieties in particular are guarantors for first-class wines.

Country

Portugal

Portugal – Much more than port

Situated on the southwestern tip of Europe, this country is, despite its small size, blessed with a multitude of landscapes. Austere mountains alternate with green valleys and golden beaches. Vines have thrived against this backdrop for over 4,000 years, brought to the peninsula by Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans.

Portugal has over 500 autochthonous varieties. The term derives from ancient Greek, and means roughly “of the land itself.”