Conciso Branco is a barrel-aged white wine made with the Bical, Encruzado and Malvasía varieties by Niepoort in the Portuguese denomination of DOC Dao (Beiras).
Niepoort is a family-run winery of Dutch origin and a leading producer of Portuguese wines, especially Port wines. Now run by the fifth generation, Dirk van der Niepoort, the winery has held onto its excellent reputation by using minimal intervention methods and making elegant and fine dry wines in the Douro region.
The grapes used to make Conciso Branco come from centuries-old plots located in Quinta da Lomba. These are old vines aged between 60 and 100 years old planted in granite soils at an altitude of 600 metres. They are cultivated using environmentally friendly agriculture with low yields and the harvest is carried out when the grapes reach optimum ripeness.
In the winery, the Conciso Branco grapes are pressed and the resulting must is fermented with native yeasts in granite vats. The wine then undergoes malolactic fermentation in used 228-litre barrels, without battonage. It ages there for 20 months.
Part of the Niepoort family, Conciso Branco is a good example of what this winery can achieve. This is a complex and very fine white wine that showcases the personality of the different terroirs and is made through minimal intervention.