June 2025 Blanco y Tinto Club

Xisto Ilimitado 2023 Branco Douro Regular Price: $32.99 Club Price: $28.04 Buy Now

Sometimes choosing the right wine for the club feels like a stalemate between greatness and greatness. That was the case when Luis Seabra visited our shop in San Francisco this spring. He brought his full lineup: reds, whites, field blends, high elevation micro-parcel madness, and every single one was excellent. Not “solid” or “interesting.” Outstanding! Deciding which bottle to include wasn’t about picking the best. It was about picking what fit.

We landed on the 2023 Xisto Ilimitado Branco, a white wine that feels almost like a Portuguese riff on Chablis. It’s light but not thin, floral but not perfumed, clean but not sterile. There’s minerality in spades, like wet river rock, and just enough tension on the palate to make you pay attention.

Seabra is a name that’s been on serious importers’ lips for years now. He cut his teeth making the wines at Niepoort before founding his own label. His philosophy is clear: let the vineyard speak, stay out of the way, and don’t polish the edges off a wine that wasn’t meant to be smooth. He’s part of a wave of winemakers redefining the Douro—not as a place only for Port, or brooding, extracted reds, but as one of the most exciting sources for lithe, mineral whites in all of Europe.

The Branco is built from indigenous grapes: Rabigato, Códega, Gouveio, and Viosinho, pulled from high-elevation schist soils that stay cool and hard through the Portuguese summer. Fermented with native yeasts and raised in neutral barrels, the wine has a texture that’s almost saline, with notes of white flowers, citrus pith, and crushed stone. It’s a wine that doesn't immediately command your attention.  It slowly takes it over and by the third glass it almost takes your palate hostage.  

As a Spanish Wine Club member, your fridge is likely not full of Sancerre, but if you’ve been a secret Chablis fan who's not looking to find French pleasure on the Iberian peninsula, this is your next move. 

Luis didn’t come to sell us this wine. He just showed up, poured the lineup, and let the bottles speak. This one spoke clearly to us and we are certain it will speak clearly to you.  Yet another proof that Portugal, while known mostly for its red wines, is a reliable source of amazing white wines.  

Bestizo 2023 Emilio Moro Mencia Regular Price: $35.99 Club Price: $30.59 Buy Now

Emilio Moro's first Mencia and you get to taste it here first!

Last September, I visited Emilio Moro during the 2024 harvest in Valladolid, Ribera del Duero. The day was warm light, busy and a lineup of wines that reminded me exactly why this estate has such a loyal following. (That’s a shot from the tasting below.) We moved through their signature reds, polished, structured, unmistakably Moro. But quietly tucked into the conversation was a mention of something new

At the time, it wasn’t on the table. The wine I think had already been made, from the 2023 Mencía but there was no formal tasting, no press sheet just a quiet sense that this project meant something. The team spoke about it with a kind of careful excitement, like a story they weren’t quite ready to share.

Fast forward to earlier this month, and I finally tasted Bestizo with the importer. It landed. Bright and expressive, with juicy dark fruit, subtle spice, and that lifted, cool-climate energy that offers a clean, inviting take on Bierzo’s Mencía. What grounds it and makes it unmistakably Emilio Moro is a structure that runs through all their wines. It’s Bierzo seen through Ribera’s lens: confident, precise, and super approachable.

Then came the detail that pulled it all together for me. Bestizo comes from Bercian, the local dialect of Bierzo a bridge language between Galician and Leonese. So that idea of a bridge — It’s the wine’s identity in a single word. A wine that connects: Atlantic freshness with Castilian depth. Regional expression with time tested wine making.

Bestizo feels like more than a new release. It’s kind of a pivot point that says a lot about where Spanish wine is headed, and how deep roots can still grow in new directions.