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Very wet Winter raises the bar for the 2014 harvest
Spring is finally coming after a very wet Winter in Portugal. This was probably the wettest Winter of the last 80 years, which gives us quite good expectations for the harvest to come. As you all know,...
View ArticleQuinta da Alegria – removing stones to plant vines
Works continue in Quinta da Alegria as more land is ready to receive the new vines. In the last weeks we have been delineating terraces and revolving the soil to eliminate any compaction it may exist....
View ArticleQuinta da Alegria – planting vines in the Douro valley
We are now getting to the most critical phase in our works at Quinta da Alegria. After opening the terraces and removing the stones, it finally came the moment to plant the grafted vines in the soil....
View ArticleOur vineyard is going organic
I have to confess that I have been hiding precious information from you. Not intentionally, but just today realized I have never talked about a special project that kept us busy for a couple of years....
View Article2014 Harvest outlook for the Douro
The year of 2014 may be a great year for the production of wine and Port in the Douro. Some of the critical factors that contribute for above the average harvest are aligned, but it is still quite...
View ArticleThe meaning of certain wild plants in vineyards
Inspired by an article on Western Farm Press about weeds in vineyards, we were looking at the wild plants we have in our vineyards. The idea is that by analyzing these wild plants we can understand...
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Temperatures and rain influence in Douro wines
When someone asks a winemaker (one that knows where the grapes are coming from) why his wines taste a particular way, they will generally say that the wine reflects the provenience of the grapes. We...
View ArticleHarvest 2015: first maturity control
With more than half Summer gone it is time to go to the vineyards to do the first analysis of the maturity of the grapes. As always, we start these controls on the 10th of August at Quinta Vale...
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White grapes planted in the Douro valley
Now that the harvest of the white grapes is over, I thought you might want to know a bit more about the most popular white grapes of the Douro. How do they look and taste like. I kindly asked the...
View ArticleQuevedo 2015 Douro Vintage Report
If you think rain during the harvest can only bring harm, change your mind. In 2015, contrarily to the previous two years, the best wines were produced few days after 30mm of rainfall over Quinta Vale...
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Summer Salad Recipe
Summer is definitively at our door. We thought it would be a good timing to share with you a fresh salad recipe to pair with our whites. INGREDIENTS (for 6 servings): For the SALAD: -1 chayote(Chuchu...
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Moon and Wine, Myth or Reality!?!
Even when we do not see it, it is somewhere up there and its gravity, as we all know, creates the tides on our blue planet. The Moon, the lonely satellite of planet Earth has always been captivating...
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To Blend or not to Blend, that is the Question!
As far as we remember, the Douro has always been a land where we were blending grapes. Blending in the vineyards, blending in the stone lagares, blending in the cellar and blending before bottling!...
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Our Journey Into Organic
Our journey into Organic practices in our farms and vineyards started in 2005 when my father started growing 20 hectares of olive trees to make organic olive oil in Valongo dos Azeites, his mother’s...
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The soil of the Douro, lost in translation. Is there really schist in the...
In Portuguese, the soil of the Douro is named ‘’xisto’’. If you look on google translate you’ll see that xisto’s first result will be schist which is also the closest phonetically. But if you also look...
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The influence of the Marão on the Douro Valley climate
100km East of Porto city, the Serra do Marão surrounds the Douro River, giving birth to the Douro Valley as the river carved its path through it. Its highest peak is standing over 1400 meters. The...
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