Vinho Verde is having a bit of a moment, and Márcio Lopes’s are some of the best we’ve tried.

This bottle, made with 100% Loureiro, is a light greenish-straw colour with a really fresh acidity that it gets from the cool wet climate of northern Portugal and its strong Atlantic influence. It’s a perfect characterisation of the type with a lemon verbena aroma and crisp apple in the mouth that whets the palate for a really moreish glass.

Lopes uses traditional farming methods but refrains from the use of herbicides and exclusively buys grapes with similarly sustainable viticulture. His winemaking is also low intervention. After manual harvesting, these grapes undergo stainless steel small-tank fermentation using natural yeasts and short maceration on lees, before light filtration at bottling.

This process is true to his beliefs that good enough fruit will make high quality wines that truly reflect the terroir of Vinho Verde.

Serve lightly chilled.