2025 Filipa Pato - Bairrada Bical Dnmc (750ml)

Filipa Pato, daughter of Bairrada pioneer Luís Pato, began making her own wines in 2001 after harvests abroad, buying grapes and renting vineyards. In 2013, she and her husband William Wouters, a Belgian former chef and champion sommelier, bought their own winery. The Dinâmica name nods to Bairrada’s polycultural landscape of olive, fig, and pine trees, whose wildlife and beneficial insects help protect the vines.

DNMC Branco is built mostly on native Bical, with Arinto in support, from chalky limestone soils cooled by Atlantic winds. Farming is organic and biodynamic, and the wines ferment with wild yeasts. Bical is picked in early September, while Arinto ripens two to three weeks later, so the blend comes together from separate harvests. In some vintages a small portion has rested in large oak pipas. The wine is unfined and light in alcohol, at around 11.5 percent.

Pear, white flowers, and citrus blossom lead, with lemon zest, green apple, a whiff of iodine, and herbal notes of thyme and rosemary. The palate is crisp and linear, with bright acidity and a textured mid-palate. A salty, chalky, mouthwatering finish carries the limestone character through. Fresh and mineral, it captures the Atlantic side of Bairrada.