2024 Profetas e Villoes "Listrao dos Profetas" Madeirense Branco

Listrao dos Profetas is an unfortified white from Porto Santo, the small, arid island northeast of Madeira, made entirely from Listrao, the local name for the grape known as Listan Blanco in the Canary Islands and Palomino in Jerez. It is made by Companhia de Vinhos dos Profetas e Villoes, the project of Madeiran restaurateur Nuno Faria and Antonio Macanita, one of Portugal's most acclaimed winemakers, known for reviving nearly lost varieties and methods across the Azores, the Douro and beyond. The fruit comes from vines more than 80 years old, trained low over sandy, calcareous soils and sheltered from Atlantic winds by reed screens and dry stone walls on an island that receives under 400 millimeters of rain a year, the driest place in Portugal. Whole bunches are pressed directly, and the wine ferments and ages on its lees for around ten to eleven months in small stainless steel tanks and used 228 liter barrels, giving a textured, saline white of unusual weight. Its struck-match reduction reads more like Cote de Beaune than Atlantic island, and served blind it could pass for a 1er Cru from Pierre Yves Colin Morey, the Burgundy grower whose taut, reductive whites are among the most sought after in the region. The debut 2020 vintage earned 94 points from Mark Squires, the longtime Portugal specialist at Wine Advocate, who likened its richness to Madeira as it was made before fortification took hold in the 17th century.