La Portera ‘Tardano’ Macabeo 2024 is Javier and Jorge’s first ever white wine. They had originally planned for the wine to be a blend, but so good was the Macabeo in 2024, that it makes up most of the blend. It is expressive and textured with saline acidity, soft tropical fruit notes, citrus and fleshy apple. There is a depth of flavour and complexity to the wine which is thrilling and ever so enjoyable.
La Portera is a wine making project akin to Gary Lightbody’s early noughties Scottish supergroup The Reindeer Section. Javier del Blanco, Francisco Santiso and Jorge Navascues are all wonderful winemakers in their own right, Jorge being the most well known as head winemaker at Rioja Contino, but together, like a fine blend, their whole becomes greater than their parts. The project was born in 2017 with the desire to bottle small parcels of old vine Bobal from Javier’s home region of Valencia. The original vineyard is in the tiny village of La Portera which gives its name to the wine. In 2019 the project was expanded to a Garnacha sourced from a couple of plots in Carinena.
The aim of the La Portera project is to produce wines that showcase both the grape variety and a sense of place. Even as I write that, it sounds like a cliché, but many feel that Spain is still dominated by Tempranillo and Rioja. Nothing wrong at all with either, but even Rioja is going through a movement towards non-Tempranillo grapes and specific vineyard site selection. The La Portera wines are fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged in neutral vessels, mostly concrete which results in elegant rather than powerful wines and showcases both wonderful grape varieties and their respected regions.
