Alento Branco 2025

Alento Branco 2025 is a regional Alentejo wine made by Adega do Monte Branco in Estremoz, signed by winemaker Luís Louro.

This wine is known for its fresh, balanced profile and is a popular choice for anyone seeking an authentic expression of the region's white grapes.

The Wine Advocate
RP 90

Reviewed by: Luis Gutiérrez

The very young, slightly reductive 2025 Alento Branco is very pale with greenish glints, and has a medicinal, slightly balsamic nose that should integrate with a few more months in bottle, revealing white fruit and flowers at its core. It's an unoaked blend of native grapes — 40% Arinto, 30% Roupeiro, 20% Antão Vaz and 10% Esgana Cão — from two plots planted in 2017 and 2020, on limestone and schist soils, at 340 to 400 metres. The grapes fermented together, with neutral yeasts, in stainless steel vats.

The palate is light but serious, with restrained ripeness, 12.5% alcohol, good balance and freshness. It has a pH of 3.29, 5.6 g/L acidity and a dry, very firm finish. 24,000 bottles were produced. It was bottled in January 2026.

Luis Louro is the son of Miguel Louro of Quinta do Mouro. In 2004 Luis created Adega Monte Branco in Estremoz, aiming to make wines focused on balance rather than power and on freshness rather than excess. The project is built on traditional Portuguese grapes and inspired by Alentejo wines of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Luis firmly believes great wines are made in the vineyard, so he began the project by renting vineyards while gradually building his own winery. Over the years he has expanded through land purchases, new plantings and buying vineyards. By the 2024 harvest, almost all the plots were owned by the house, with only one still rented.

Sustainability has become central to the project, including weed control without herbicides — with sheep in winter and mechanical methods in spring and summer — exclusively organic fertilisation, producing 80% of the energy used in the winery and vineyard, and a preference for grapes well adapted to the climate.

There's also a growing focus on traditional Portuguese grapes with a long growing cycle, high acidity and ageing potential. Luis Louro was the first producer in the region to plant Esgana Cão and Galego Dourado, continually adapting grapes, rootstocks and training systems to each specific soil type and plot.

The project celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024. It now farms a total of 28 hectares across five plots, all in Estremoz, the oldest planted in 1993. Average annual production is about 200,000 bottles.

Published: 11 June 2026