The launch of Soalheiro 2024
I will freely admit that Soalheiro Alvarinho is my house white wine in Portugal. There are plenty of different Soalheiro wines to choose from – few producers have the temerity to interpret Alvarinho in so many different ways – but I always come back to the ‘normal’, straightforward ‘Soalheiro Alvarinho’.
Of course, there is nothing ‘normal’ about the wine. First launched on the market in 1982, it has consistently been one of the purest expressions of a grape variety that sings purity from the glass. Fragrant without being aromatic with cool climate freshness and steely minerality (an over-used word) that seems to define the wine, Soalheiro is my go-to white in Portugal whether it be on its own as a gentle aperitif or with a plate of the finest seafood from off the Atlanic coast.
Last year I visited Soalheiro in Melgaço for the first time and I still marvel at this thriving family business with its focus on Alvarinho, pure but not always so simple. So I was delighted to receive a sample of Soalheiro Alvarinho from the 2024 vintage as well as a bottle from the previous decade to prove that Alvarinho is capable of bottle age. The 2024 growing season was successful throughout Portugal and this is the first manifestation of a finished (i.e bottled) wine that I have tasted. I loved the older wine but I was thoroughly seduced by the immediacy and freshness of the 2024. Roll on summer in Portugal!
Soalheiro 2024 **** / *****
Pale and gently perfumed, freshly cut spring grass with apple and the merest hint of jasmine on the nose, lithe and steely, immediately appealing with the delicacy of a freshly picked Coxes apple lingering on a crystalline finish. It is magical that a wine so tantalising it its youth can age with such grace and gain poise in bottle. 18.5
Soalheiro 2017 ****
Pale straw with a glint of gold, exotic aromas of orange blossom, peach and ripe pear with comparatively rich peach and pineapple flavours, verging on sub-tropical, a savoury touch mid-palate and finished with that steely acidity that is so characteristic of Alvarinho from the Minho valley. Delicious with a Friday evening fish pie! 18
