📍 Vinho Verde

Vinho Verde is a wine area in north-western Portugal, in the historic Minho. The zone stretches between the Douro and Minho rivers all the way to the Atlantic. The greenest and rainiest part of the country took the name "green wine", meaning "young": it is drunk three to six months after the harvest. The district is part of Portuguese wine.

Nine subregions are defined: Monção e Melgaço, Lima, Cávado, Ave, Basto, Sousa, Baião, Paiva and Amarante. The area was demarcated by law as early as 1908, and today it covers about 21,000 hectares, roughly 9% of all Portuguese vineyards.

Typical Vinho Verde is white, light, slightly fizzy, with 8.5 to 11% alcohol. It is made from the grapes Loureiro, Arinto, Trajadura, Avesso and Azal. From Alvarinho in Monção and Melgaço comes a fuller wine of 11.5 to 14%. Reds are made from Vinhão, Borraçal and Amaral: they are dark and tannic. Rosé and sparkling wines are made too.

The light bubbles were once seen as a fault, but consumers liked them, and winemakers kept the feature. The Roman authors Seneca the Younger and Pliny the Elder already wrote about wines from the land between the Douro and Minho rivers.