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Two hearts, one great wine
“All we had was a dream, a vision, a project in common that would embrace our life as a couple.”
The name Wine & Soul is the product of their passion and total commitment to wine. From the start, this company’s work has focused on a tireless search for exceptional vines in the Pinhão Valley – the historic heart of great Port wines – to give them a voice. Technical sheet -
Creating wines that express the full character of old vines and indigenous grape varieties from the Douro, seeking balance between concentration, complexity, and elegance” is the great objective of the winemaking couple Sandra Tavares da Silva and Jorge Serôdio Borges, who have been investing in old vines and properties in the Rio Pinhão valley since 2001. This is where Manoella Tinto is born, at Quinta da Manoella, a historic property owned by the family for 5 generations.
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As you would expect, in the greatest of vintages, our Finn bottling naturally rises to the top. It’s a wine that will be lovely this winter but even better in five years, then at its apogee in eight to ten. Just as the wine expresses these vineyards’ two distinct soil types: silty/sandy and clay/loam, so too the wine shows the dual sides of local Pinot Noir: bright and effusive balancing and offsetting deep and expansive. It’s most similar in style and quality to 2018 and 2014, our two finest prior efforts. This is one of those wines that we don’t need to dissect or over-analyze, let’s just enjoy it for the sheer quality and pleasure it offers.
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Our 2021 vintage of “Wester Reach” Chardonnay is a multi-layered interpretation of this classic region where we live and farm. It includes some of the greatest sites in the appellation—vineyards that we have planted, farmed, and harvested for over twenty years. Comprising in three of our region’s unique sub-districts, the wine blends fruit from the valley itself with vineyards further west, stretching out to the coolest ‘reaches’ of the appellation’s high elevation coastal ridges. Each district contributes something unique, be it valley-floor richness, ridgeline density or coastal vibrancy.
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Herdade dos Grous -Alentejo, Portugal’s largest province holds the traditional Portuguese charm and a Moorish heritage, which can be seen in all its architecture. Its continental climate with Mediterranean influences, offers ideal conditions for the production of fantastic wines and extremely high quality regional products.
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Quinta das Carvalhas is the most emblematic and spectacular property in the Douro Valley. Written references regarding this magnificent vineyard can be traced back to 1759. Enjoying a prominent position on the left bank of the Douro river, in Pinhão, the estate covers the entire hillside facing the Douro river and occupies part of the slopes of the right bank of the tributary Torto river. Originating from selected parcels of centennary vines at Quinta das Carvalhas, the Carvalhas Vinhas Velhas is the very best that we can make at Real Companhia Velha. The result, is a superb Douro red, which not only expresses the singularity of this estate and its north facing vineyards, but also reflects on Douro’s history, due to the vast diversity of varieties present in the parcels of old vines. The Carvalhas extracts from these vines the power and concentration and from its sun exposure the freshness and balance. A wine that will certainly offer great character after ageing few decades in bottle. Pair it with Wild Boar, Rib-Eye, Phaesent or other gamaey food
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This wine comes from the very poor granit wineyard of Saint Hippolyte. The terroir is made of the degradation of the grey granit of Thannenkirch, light, white, sandy, poor and extremely dry, similar foind in the Cote Des Nuits. The growing of the vine is limited, and it must invest quickly in the maturation of the fruits. This is why this wineyard is one of the first ever planted in Alsace.
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Domaine Sérafin estate includes vineyard holdings in Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-St.-Denis, and Chambolle-Musigny. His prized Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru plot occupies a mere 0.31 hectares with vines planted in 1946. The domaine is now run by cousins Frédérique and Karine who are continuing the family tradition of making bold and structured wines. Their Pinots benefit from a period of bottle age and typically express fine tertiary characteristics. They do not fine or filter their wines, and only rack when necessary. Not shy of new oak, they use up to 50% on their straight Bourgogne and often 100% on the rest of their cuvées depending on the concentration. The wines tend to be ample and fleshy, and the richest ones need some cellaring in order to better integrate the spicy, cedarwood flavours.
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The Marquises Incisa della Rocchetta are among the protagonists of Italian history, from the early Middle Ages to the dawn of the Baroque age and beyond. Mario Incisa della Rocchetta was born in Rome in 1889 into a Piedmontese family, studied agriculture in Pisa and immediately cultivated a strong inclination for agronomy, with the dream, already in the 1920s, of finding perfection in agriculture and respecting Earth. He moved to Maremma in the 1940s after marrying Clarice della Gherardesca in 1930, a descendant of one of the oldest families in Tuscany, that of Count Ugolino sung by Dante in the Divine Comedy. The Marquis immediately understood that it was one of the most extraordinary biotypes of Mediterranean Europe and began to experiment with some French vines, concluding that cabernet, in fact so far from the Tuscan and Piedmontese tradition of Sangiovese and Nebbiolo respectively, "has the bouquet I was looking for." This is how, thanks to the first scions received from the Salviati Dukes of Migliarino (near Pisa), also he planted the first cabernet sauvignon vineyard in the land that slopes down from the Castiglioncello fortress to the sea, in the early 1940s. We know , in reality, that alongside cabernet (sauvignon and franc), the vines used in the first planting were various and ranged from canaiolo to ciliegiolo to white grape vines. The mass selection, oriented towards the sole use of cabernet sauvignon, arrived in a more recent era between 1960 and 1968. Mario had sensed an extraordinary similarity between his lands in Bolgheri and the Graves region in Bordeaux, due to a mainly gravelly and pebbly soil, mixed with clay, very favorable for the production of great reds. From 1945 to 1967 Sassicaia remained a strictly private product, reserved for family and friends. The first vintage to appear on the market was 1968. The ancient and splendid land that Clarice della Gherardesca receives as an inheritance is a Mediterranean park stretching between the hill of the hermitage-fortress of Castiglioncello and the coast of dunes and marshes. A 2,500 hectare property in the heart of Maremma which extends over an area of 13 kilometers from the hill to the sea and runs along the famous cypress avenue. The soils, partially clayey, located at an altitude between 60 and 400 meters above sea level, with exposure to the west/southwest, show different and composite morphological characteristics, with a strong presence of limestone areas rich in alberese, of gabbro and stones. The climate has its own peculiarity: the embrace of hills that extends from Bibbona to Castagneto protects the vineyards and olive groves from north-east winds, while in summer this corridor is refreshed by sea breezes. The energy and light of the sun is reflected on the sea, irradiating the hills which in turn retain the sea breeze and generate refreshing humidity. The woods, dense and uncontaminated, constitute an extraordinary natural lung. This is the microclimate that characterizes Tenuta San Guido An area that deserves its own appellation: DOC Bolgheri Sassicaia. This isn't just tasting good wine, is creating good memories.
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The Sirugue domaine originally belongs to Jean-Francois Jayer who was the paternal uncle of Henri-Jayer, the "King" of Burgundy. JF Jayer and his wife had a son and a daughter (named Jeanne) who subsequently married Joseph Sirugue. Hence the Sirugue surname was introduced to the Jayer family. Robert, who is the father of the current management team (siblings Marie-France & Jean-Louis Sirugue), inherited the land from his dad's brother, Joseph.
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The 2017 Pavie Macquin is a rich, deep and super-expressive wine with remarkable persistence. As always, Pavie Macquin is a potent Saint-Émilion, but the 2017 has terrific energy as well. In 2017, Pavie-Macquin is not as forthcoming in its youth as it can be, and is going to need a few years in bottle to truly come together