Protocols by grape and style

A pungent, thiol-driven white — passionfruit, grapefruit, boxwood and fresh-cut herb over racy acidity, unoaked and bottled young.

A textural, savoury white — citrus and orchard fruit layered with struck-flint reduction, oak integrated by barrel fermentation, lees and malolactic.

A ripe, generous white — stone fruit and tropical notes with vanilla and butter — full-bodied from warm-climate ripeness, new oak and full malolactic.

A savoury, perfumed red — black pepper, violet, olive and cured meat over fresh acidity and fine tannin, often with whole-cluster lift and restrained, large-format oak.

A rich, full-bodied Shiraz — ripe blackberry, plum and licorice with chocolate and sweet spice, plush tannin, generous ripeness and often American-oak vanilla.

A transparent, low-alcohol white of piercing acidity — lime, white flowers and wet slate — usually off-dry, the sweetness poised against the acid.

A lean, low-alcohol, unoaked white picked early and bottled young — neutral and citrusy at first, it ages a decade or more into honey and buttered toast with no oak at all.

An Atlantic white of white peach, citrus and salinity over high acidity — thick-skinned and aromatic, from crisp and fresh to lees-textured.

A translucent, perfumed red — cherry, raspberry and rose over silky, fine tannin and bright acidity, framed by restrained French oak.

A structured, age-worthy red — cassis, cedar and graphite over firm tannin — built through a Bordeaux blend, long maceration and maturation in French oak.

Pale but ferocious — tar, rose and red cherry over towering tannin and acidity, matured long in large Slavonian oak or, in the modern style, French barriques.

The benchmark traditional-method sparkling — a lean base wine given a second fermentation in bottle, long autolytic ageing on lees and disgorgement, for biscuity complexity and a fine mousse.

The benchmark pale, dry rosé — delicate red-berry, citrus and floral over crisp acidity — made by short skin contact or direct pressing, with colour and phenolics the central levers.

The Douro's flagship fortified red — deeply extracted, then fortified mid-ferment with grape spirit to keep rich sweetness and lift strength; bottled young to age, reductively, for decades.