Casa Relvas launches new Pé de Mãe harvest

Casa Relvas has launched a new vintage of one of the top-of-the-range references in its portfolio: Herdade de São Miguel Pé de Mãe 2020. This is a very special wine, which represents the noble grape varieties that the Alentejo producer has been promoting. «2020 was a difficult year in Alentejo. The winter was cold and rainy and the spring very rainy with a lot of mildew pressure. The summer was hot and dry, however with a large presence of water in the soil. During maturation, the cold and dry nights allowed preserving the acidity and achieving very balanced levels of phenolic maturation», explains Alexandre Relvas, CEO of Casa Relvas. 

‘Pé de Mãe’ is the name given to the vines selected for vegetative reproduction, which are chosen for the quality of their fruit and also for their good adaptation to a given terroir and resistance to wood diseases. This wine is a tribute to the traditional Alentejo grape varieties, which have been losing some importance in the region and which are currently increasingly forgotten, but which Casa Relvas has also been highlighting with its range of red and white single varieties. 

For the production of this wine, composed mainly of Trincadeira (90%), grapes were selected from the plants that presented the best vegetative expression and more homogeneous maturation. The grapes come from a vineyard planted in 2001, at Herdade de São Miguel, in Redondo, on shale soils, surrounded by a forest of cork oaks. 

The Herdade de São Miguel Pé de Mãe 2020, with manual harvesting and selection on the plot, underwent fermentation with indigenous yeasts (naturally present in the vine, in the grapes, in the soil and in the air), with controlled temperature, and fermentation in stainless steel with whole berry and 20% of stems. There was also a 30-day maceration, and the stage was made in a 5,000-liter French oak barrel, over 18 months. With an open ruby color and aroma of red fruits and orange blossoms, with balsamic notes, this wine has a good acidity on the palate, smooth tannins, and a fruity and persistent aftertaste. 

Herdade de São Miguel Pé de Mãe 2020 is the ideal wine to accompany soft cheeses, stews, sausages and red meats. With a recommended RRP of 30 euros, the new vintage of this already iconic Casa Relvas wine is on sale in the main wineries and specialty stores across the country.