LUIS SEABRA XISTO CRU RED 75CL

Raw wine, minimal intervention from the schist soil to the bottle.

Luis Seabra:
Over the years I worked in the Douro region I developed a special relationship with some of the old vines that exist there. Those ones are not lush and their trunks mostly are not thick and imposing. On the contrary - they are slender and twisted, have their own serenity coming from age. This can be seen over the maturation period, during which they respond more calmly than the other vineyards to various weather conditions, holding better the heat peaks and water stress and also resisting better the rains that insists on dropping before the harvest. Those vineyards have a singular character given by the site where they are planted and the varieties that make up the mixture. If we respect the grapes individuality in the winery the wines will be as the vineyards - discrete, not exuberant and with a depth and complexity coming from the long years of experience.

The wine XISTO CRU Tinto as all wines of CRU Project comes from two specific vineyard plots and attempts to show the soil, the vine and the region. Winemaking methods are very little interventional, fermentation with stems is made by indigenous yeast in open wooden vats from old Port wine barrels. Ageing is done in French oak used barrels.

The grapes come from two vineyards from Cima Côrgo region; one in Covas Valley and the other in Ervedosa do Douro, all with more than 80 years. The first one is planted at 400m altitude facing west and the second one at 570m facing north. In both predominant varieties are: Rufete, Touriga Franca, Tinta Carvalha, Malvazia Preta, Alicante de Bouchet, Donzelinho Tinto, among others. The first vineyard is vase pruned and grows without any support of metal wires. Part of the Ervedosa vineyard is already wireframed. Both are planted in slate soils with predominance of blue schist, a harder stone with tendency to give more austere wines.