Lavradores de Feitoria Branco 2023
Price: $15.95
Channel: LCBO Vintages
Producer: Lavradores de Feitoria
Country: Portugal
Region: Douro
Appellation: Douro DOC
Grapes: Malvasia Fina, Gouveio, Syria (% N/A)
Alcohol by Volume: 12.5%
Sugar Content: 2 grams per litre
LCBO website lists this wine as a 2023 vintage, but there is no vintage on the bottle. The Lavradores de Feitoria has a page for the 2024 vintage, which seems to be the latest in the market. But the bottle shown on the Lavradores website is Burgundian, while the one for sale in Ontario is Bordelais. So, this might be from 2023, 2024 or a non-vintage blend of wines from different years put together for export. It doesn’t matter because whatever its age or ages, it’s a lovely fresh white wine at great price.
The Lavradores de Feitoria is an interesting project. Begun in 2000, it seems to be a kind of super-co-operative of 15 Douro producers (some very well known) to combine a portion of their fruit to make wines in a different style than there own bottlings. The Branco is very much in the new wave Portuguese fresh, bone dry, style, with a good weight in the mouth and stone and citrus fruit character.
The Lavradores white would be an excellent match for grilled sardines for lunch, but will most likely see most of its service as an aperitif, matched with salty snacks before dinner. At $16 a bottle, it seems like it would be good to have a few on hand to handle any extra guest traffic through the Thanksgiving weekend.