At A Glance
- **Country**
- Portugal
- **Region**
- Vinho Verde
- **Subregion**
- Monção e Melgaço (Génese); Barcelos area, Requião (Guri)
- **Grapes**
- Alvarinho (Génese); coastal blend, unconfirmed varieties (Guri)
- **Style**
- Dry white (Génese); off-dry white (Guri)
- **Founded**
- 2024
- **Notable**
- Génese Alvarinho 2024: 92 points, James Suckling
The Producer
Manuel Cerdeira spent more than thirty years making wine in Melgaço, the high-altitude subregion at the northern edge of Vinho Verde, before he and his son Luís founded Vinevinu in 2024. The name folds Portuguese and Latin together: vine and vinu, a small statement about local roots and wider ambition.
The producer launched with two wines drawn from opposite ends of the Vinho Verde denomination: Génese, a 100% Alvarinho from Manuel's home ground in Melgaço, and Guri, a coastal blend grown in Requião, a parish in the Barcelos lowlands where Atlantic weather shapes a very different growing season. Vinevinu was not built as a single-appellation house with a second label attached. The two terroirs were the premise from the beginning.
For a producer with no prior label history, the debut was pointed: James Suckling awarded Génese Alvarinho 2024 ninety-two points, noting peaches, honey, salinity and a direct, incisive palate. A first vintage from a new label entering the critical record immediately is an unusual outcome, and it followed three decades of accumulated knowledge in the same mountain subregion.
Place
Vinho Verde covers a large tract of northwest Portugal between the Douro and the Minho rivers, and the variation within its legal boundary is wide enough that two bottles labelled Vinho Verde can taste like wines from different countries. The appellation encompasses low-lying coastal zones exposed to constant Atlantic wind and rain, and mountain subregions in the far north where altitude and proximity to Spain produce a cooler, drier growing season with sharper temperature swings between day and night.
Melgaço, where Génèse is grown, occupies the northeastern corner of this territory. It sits within the Monção e Melgaço subregion, bordered by the River Minho and the Galician highlands, at elevations that reduce heat accumulation and extend the growing season. That longer season, combined with granitic soils and the altitude's diurnal effect, keeps Alvarinho grapes taut and acidic even as they develop flavour concentration. The result, in the glass, is white wine with more weight and complexity than the easy, slightly fizzy Vinho Verdes that made the denomination internationally familiar.
Requião, the source of Guri, sits in the Barcelos lowlands near the coast. Atlantic influence dominates: high rainfall, maritime humidity, and a shorter, warmer ripening window that suits grapes with natural sweetness and softer acidity. The wines from the coast read differently from mountain Alvarinho, and Vinevinu's range was designed to make that contrast legible.
Soil And Site
Melgaço's vineyard soils are predominantly granitic, thin-layered and free-draining. Granite forces vine roots deep, constrains vigour, and contributes a dry mineral character that persists through fermentation into the finished wine. High altitude adds diurnal temperature range, which preserves acidity and perfume through a longer ripening period.
Requião's coastal soils carry the heavier, more moisture-retentive character common to Vinho Verde's lower zones, where Atlantic rainfall is absorbed rather than shed. Vines grown here have more immediate access to water and build ripeness faster, producing wines that sit at a different point on the sweetness and acidity spectrum from mountain Alvarinho.
Story
Manuel Cerdeira's connection to Melgaço predates Vinevinu by three decades. He worked the Monção e Melgaço subregion through a period when Alvarinho moved from a regional curiosity to one of Portugal's most discussed white grapes, accumulating knowledge of altitude viticulture and the particular character that granitic mountain parcels deliver to Alvarinho.
When Manuel and Luís launched Vinevinu in 2024, the decision to work both Melgaço and the coastal lowlands at Requião was a deliberate founding choice, not a gradual expansion. Two wines, two climates, two distinct expressions of what the Vinho Verde denomination can produce at its geographic extremes. Luís brought a contemporary perspective to production; Manuel brought the institutional memory of Melgaço accumulated across an entire career.
The name Vinevinu signals that ambition: neither purely Portuguese nor purely Latin, it sits between registers in the same way the producer straddles the denomination's altitudinal range.
Vineyards And Cellar
Génese is fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged in contact with fine lees. Indigenous yeast fermentation proceeds more slowly and unpredictably than inoculated fermentation, and it tends to build texture and complexity in the finished wine rather than primary fruit brightness alone. Lees contact adds roundness and volume, softening acidity while extending the mid-palate.
For Guri, the coastal origin at Requião shapes the wine from the ground up: Atlantic maritime conditions produce grapes with natural sweetness alongside acidity, and the wine is made to hold that balance rather than drive toward dryness.
Specific cellar details including fermentation vessel type, lees contact duration, and oak use are not confirmed.
Wines
Vinevinu currently produces two wines from two geographically opposed terroirs.
Génese is 100% Alvarinho grown in Melgaço at altitude. It is a dry white wine with a medium-intensity yellow colour. The nose is described as deep and complex, the palate as fresh, rounded, and persistent, with balance between acidity and mouth volume and a long finish. Lees contact contributes roundness without masking the mountain Alvarinho's natural drive. Génese carries stated ageing potential, unusual for a Vinho Verde and a consequence of the grape's concentration at altitude combined with the lees-contact framework.
Guri is a white blend from Requião, a coastal parish where Atlantic maritime conditions dominate. The wine holds natural sweetness alongside persistent acidity in a harmonious register rather than dry sharpness. Specific grape varieties in the blend are not confirmed.
A sparkling range has been referenced but carries no confirmed technical or sensory detail.
In The Glass
Génese opens with sliced peaches and a thread of honey, the nose reflective of Alvarinho's natural stone-fruit character when grown at altitude with a long ripening window. In the mouth, the wine is direct and incisive: salinity arrives early, followed by texture and volume that fill the mid-palate without softness or blur. Freshness and weight are held in balance across the whole palate, and the finish is long and persistent, neither fading into warmth nor cutting off abruptly. The acidity is present throughout but never aggressive; it is the frame that keeps the volume and richness from going slack. Lees contact contributes roundness without covering the mineral character that granitic soils and altitude deliver.
Guri moves in a different direction. Coastal viticulture at Requião builds natural sweetness into the fruit, and the wine carries that sweetness openly while persistent acidity holds the balance. It is the softer, more immediately approachable wine in the range, with a harmonious palate.
A Bottle To Understand It
Génese Alvarinho 2024 is the first bottle. It is 100% Alvarinho from high-altitude parcels in Melgaço, fermented on indigenous yeasts and aged on fine lees: three choices that point toward complexity and longevity rather than immediate lightness. The nose delivers peach and honey. The palate is incisive, saline and full, with freshness that keeps the texture from feeling heavy. Acidity and volume hold each other in balance across a long, persistent finish. Génese 2024 received 92 points from James Suckling in its debut year, a score that reflects the depth Manuel Cerdeira's three decades in Melgaço bring to this first bottle under his own label.
Anecdote
Vinevinu released its first vintage in 2024. Manuel Cerdeira had spent more than thirty years making wine in Melgaço before the label existed; his son Luís joined for the founding, and together they produced their first Génese Alvarinho from altitude parcels Manuel had known across his entire career. The wine carried indigenous yeast fermentation and lees ageing, and when James Suckling tasted the 2024, he gave it 92 points. His note described sliced peaches and honey on the nose and a palate with salinity, volume and freshness all in balance. A label with no vintage history, no prior release, and no track record of its own had placed itself in the critical record at 92 points on its first attempt. Manuel's accumulated knowledge of Melgaço had been working quietly for thirty years before it had a label to put on a bottle.
Final Word
Vinevinu is a young producer with a clear premise: two wines, two climates, one denomination, and a winemaker who has spent three decades learning one of those climates before attaching his name to a bottle. Génese is the wine to start with, and the 2024 is already in the rankings.