Photography: RR
Elin McCoy, wine specialist and columnist at Bloomberg News, featured a wine from Cheleiros (a locality in the municipality of Mafra) as one of the “most memorable” she tasted in 2021.
The white wine “2017 Manz Cheleiros Dona Fátima Jampal”, produced entirely from an almost extinct Portuguese grape, the Jampal variety, was considered the “discovery of the year”, integrating last year’s list of the 10 favourite wines.
“My discovery of the year is this unique white, the only wine in the world made entirely from the rare Portuguese grape jampal. I was captivated by both the taste and the tale of the grape’s rescue from near extinction by a Brazilian ex-soccer player, goalkeeper Andre Manz. He bought a small vineyard north of Lisbon and enlisted experts to determine what the grapes were. His jampal, with perfumy aromas and the tang of citrus, earth, and fresh green plants, is like a combo of chardonnay, semillon, and sauvignon blanc — long and elegant. It’s nearly impossible to find right now, but more is coming in 2022.”
a soft wine, very fruity and with tropical aromas
On social media, Manwzine explains how this winery project came about:
“It was in 2007 that André Manz discovered, in an abandoned vineyard he had bought, two hundred strains of an unknown grape. Confused by the numerous names that the inhabitants of the region called this grape – from “Jampali” to “João Paulo” – it was finally identified by the Vine and Wine Institute.
The Jampal variety, characteristic of the Cheleiros region, would have been abandoned due to its low profitability and the sensitivity that its pruning involved. However, despite being advised against doing so, André did not reject the challenge of exploring the potential of this grape.
The result is now visible to all and marks the birth of Manzwine, a pioneering and unique project in the production of 100% Jampal wines.”
André Manz is the only producer with a single-variety Jampal wine and, according to the National Institute of Agrarian Research, the only producer in Portugal with a certified vineyard of this variety.
It is a soft wine, very fruity with tropical aromas and excellent to accompany, according to the producer, baked fish.
You can read the full Bloomberg article here.
Esta publicação também está disponível em | This article is also available in: Portuguese (Portugal)
