Mendes & Symington Alvarinho Avesso Vinho Verde DOC 2024

Fresh and quietly fragrant, there’s a lot more going on in this Vinho Verde than the category usually delivers. Citrus fruit aroma, with clear hints of tangerine and green apple. Orange blossom, lemon zest and green apple lead on the palate, but there’s a light sea-spray minerality and a touch of texture that give it shape. A fresh and balanced mouthfeel with vibrant acidity, elegant and medium body. Brisk and lifted, with Alvarinho’s citrusy precision softened by Avesso’s gentler orchard-fruit curve. It finishes clean and dry, which keeps you coming back. 

The 2024 Alvarinho Avesso pulls Alvarinho from stony Monção soils along the Minho for salty snap and Avesso from Baião’s Douro-edge for ripe texture—hand-harvested, skin-soaked briefly, then slow-fermented and lees-aged three months for vibrancy with midpalate heft. This isn’t entry Vinho Verde: structured for 7–10 years, it’s Atlantic white with Douro polish and Monção cut.

The grapes were handpicked into small boxes and swiftly transported to the winery, preserving all freshness. Following the destemming of the bunches, the grapes were pressed and the must clarified in extreme cold temperature for 48 to 72 hours. Prolonged fermentation at a low temperature (12-16ºC) to enhance the aromatic expression of both varieties. The wine was aged for 3 months on fine lees with regular bâtonnage to provide greater complexity and texture.

Mendes & Symington is a partnership formed in 2023 between the Symington family and winemaker Anselmo Mendes. The Symingtons have been making exceptional wines in Portugal’s Douro Valley since 1882 and are one of the region’s most influential family-owned producers. Anselmo Mendes, from Monção in the Vinho Verde region, is celebrated for his work with Alvarinho and has built an international reputation for elevating Portugal’s white wines. Together, the two families united their shared passion for quality, innovation, and authenticity to create Mendes & Symington. The partnership focuses on producing premium white wines from the Monção and Baião sub-regions of the Vinho Verde DOC, the birthplace of Portugal’s finest Alvarinho. The region’s granite soils, cool climate, and influence from the nearby Atlantic Ocean give the wines their fresh, lively flavor. Each bottle reflects the coming together of two great Portuguese wine families, combining generations of knowledge with a forward-looking vision rooted in tradition, place, and the future of Portuguese wine.