Description
Wine Details – Duckman Rosa Duck
This wine comes from 30-year-old vines planted on numerous plots of sandy and chalky-clay soils.
Alcohol Grade: 10.5%
Aging/ Vinification: Produced using the ancestral method, where the wine is bottled before the primary fermentation is finished to create natural carbonation. It is made from Baga grapes grown in sandy soils near the coast. The wine ferments with native yeasts and is bottled “zero-zero” without any added sulfur, fining, or filtration.
Best to have it: 6-10ºC
Production: 5,000 bottles
The Producer: Duckman Wines (Maria Pato)
Duckman is Maria Pato’s way of continuing her family’s long history in Portugal’s Bairrada region, but on her own terms. The name comes from her surname, Pato—a nod to her grandfather João, who was a pioneer in the area long before it was trendy. Maria works closely with her father, the legendary Luis Pato, to protect their local heritage. They only use native Portuguese grapes, refusing to plant international varieties because they want the wine to taste exactly like the coast where it’s made.
The vineyards sit very close to the Atlantic Ocean, so you get these cool breezes that keep the grapes fresh and add a noticeable saltiness to the wines. They farm two very different types of ground: some vines are in sandy soil and others in chalky clay, which gives them a lot of variety to play with. In the cellar, Maria keeps things as simple as possible, avoiding additives or heavy processing. She even leaves the official “Bairrada” name off the labels as a way to stay independent from strict local rules, focusing instead on making honest wines with plenty of personality.
