Bojo do Luar Do Bojo Branco 2022

Profile & Story

Bojo do Luar is a natural-wine project in Portugal's Vinho Verde that came to life when importer Savio Soares met Fernando Paiva, a biodynamic grower who had been adding ground chestnut flowers to the must and had stopped using SO2 altogether in 2017; Soares joined forces with two young local viticulturists to work the autochthonous varieties of northern Portugal, fertilising with self-made compost and seeding beneficial herbs between the rows. Do Bojo Branco is 60% Arinto and 40% Azal from a single 30-year-old estate parcel on granite at 350 metres near the Tamega River in Amarante, harvested in the third week of September and 90% destemmed into two 1,200-litre clay talhas along with a kilogram of ground chestnut flower. Fermentation was spontaneous and without temperature control for 17 days, malolactic finished on its own, and the wine stayed on its skins in amphora for nine months before pressing and bottling in July 2022, finishing dry at 11.5% ABV.