Mateus Nicolau de Almeida - 'o Tinto Perfeito' - Touriga Nacional - Duoro, PT - 2020

*Producer: *Mateus Nicolau de Almeida
*Varieties​: *Tinto Roriz, Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca, Malvasia Fina (Field Blend of white and red grapes)
*​Location: *Baixo Corgo, Douro, Portugal

Notes: 10 days of maceration with very few pump-overs, fermented and aged entirely in tank. A small dose of SO2 at bottling, approx. 20ppm

Mateus is the fifth generation of the Nicolau de Almeida family to produce wine in the Douro. Together with his wife, Teresa Ameztoy, they work in a wine cellar they call Shad’s Winery (Alosa Alosa), named after the fish that crossed the Douro River from the Atlantic Ocean, a reality impossible today due to the construction of the dams. In this cellar, they give us different perspectives and approaches to the vineyard and wine, based on organic and biodynamic farming.
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We love day drinking glouglou as much as anyone else (or maybe slightly more) but sometimes you need to sit down and drink a bottle of wine with a proper dinner at home on any given weeknight. Something fresh and crunchy, but with a bit more structure. Nothing too fancy mind you: think hanger steak and green salad rather than dry-aged beef and lobster tails.

The original Perfect Red came from a happy accident in one of Michel Théron’s (Clos du Jaugueyron) vineyards and led to a Clairet-style bottling dubbed ‘Le Rouge Parfait’ in 2018. With this kind of Tuesday night drinking in mind, we decided to keep bottling Perfect Reds as we came across them, first in Chris Brockway’s Berkeley cellar and later in the Douro at Mateus Nicolau De Almeida’s.

As with all of our wines, rest assured that these are all made with organic fruit, fermented with native yeasts, and have little to no added sulfur, just the way we like them. So, here's to natty wine not always being iridescent, steak wine not always being expensive, and to always having The Perfect Red for any occasion.