Wine Arcana

Grape

Malvasia de Colares

Malvasia de Colares is the white grape associated with the Atlantic vineyards of Colares, near Sintra in Portugal. It makes dry white wines whose texture and aromatic development can owe much to cellar work. The full local name is useful: Malvasia appears in the names of numerous grapes, and the word alone does not establish a shared identity or wine style.

Viticulture

The traditional sand vineyards have vines on their own roots. Growers root ungrafted canes beneath the surface sand, and the sandy environment protected the vineyards during the nineteenth-century phylloxera epidemic. As with red Ramisco, this is a feature of the growing environment, rather than proof that the grape itself resists the pest.

Adega Regional de Colares describes low, spreading vines sheltered behind cane screens, with clusters raised on small supports in late summer. Its 2011 Malvasia was harvested in the last week of September. Cool maritime conditions, frequent mist, and wind help explain both the cultivation method and the importance of bringing fruit through a long coastal season.

Wine character

Cellar work helps explain the wine's texture and aromatic development. Fermentation, contact with yeast sediment, and wood maturation each provide ways to shape a dry white beyond the character of the grapes at harvest.

The coöperative's 2011 technical sheet describes citrus and herbal notes alongside wax and honey, while recording less than two grams per litre of residual sugar. Honey as an aroma therefore need not indicate a sweet wine.

In the cellar

Two documented bottlings show the range of production choices. Adega Regional's 2011 Malvasia received six hours of skin contact in the press, overnight settling, and fermentation in stainless steel. Twelve months in tank with regular stirring of the yeast sediment preceded six months in wood.1. Adega Regional de Colares, Malvasia 2011 — DOC Colares.

The Infinitude Malvasia Branco 2021 technical description instead records juice fermentation after settling and five months in a reconditioned 500-litre French oak barrel previously used for Burgundy Chardonnay.2. Colares Wines, “Infinitude Malvasia Branco 2021.” Lees aging, brief skin contact, and vessel choice give producers different ways to develop the wine's texture. Neither example should be treated as a fixed rule for the grape.

Sources