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VINHO VERDE "GREEN WINE"


VINHO VERDE

Vines that virtually grow on trees, trellises, up telegraph poles and along fences - on anything, in fact, to take them above the ground - produce the grapes that make Vinho Verde, the wine of the Minho. Training the vine in such a way enables the smallholders - and there are more than 60,000 of them in the Minho - to grow the cabbages, maize and beans that the families survive on, and to produce grapes, which are either sold to large wineries such as Sogrape or Aveleda, or made into wine locally and sold to tourists. In addition to these small holdings, there are a growing number of professionally run quintas, where the vines are neatly trained on cruzeta trellises, seven or eight feet above the ground. Only in the Minho can one see pickers going to the harvest with ladders, a sight more reminiscent of hop-picking.

How Vinho Verde is made

When picked, the grapes should not be fully ripe, for Vinho Verde has a low alcohol content (about nine per cent) and high acidity, which is why it is called verde or "green". Bottling takes place very early to retain as much freshness as possible and to encourage a malolactic fermentation in the bottle, which results in some degree of petillance, though this can be anything from a semi-sparkle to barely a prickle: More red Vinho Verde is made than white, but virtually all of that exported is white and, more often than not, fizzed up (sparged) and sweetened.