Variação Touriga Nacional 2017

THE VINTNER
Fausto J. Montenegro Vieira Cardoso
“Shortly before I was due to retire I inherited and purchased three parcels of land in the Douro valley planted with vines and olive trees.

After my studies in agronomy at the University of Lisbon (ISA) and many years abroad, where I have followed closely and with great interest the economy of the vine and wine in Europe and around the world, I could not bring myself to sell the few pieces I had walked as a child, in the company of my father and uncles who lived from the vines. Despite the difficult location with neither well-known wines nor a family wine-making tradition (it had been lost with the advent of cooperative wineries, I decided to take action to enhance the value of the wine and olive oil production from these parcels.”

THE FARM
The vineyards cover almost 10 ha, 6 ha newly planted and 4 ha of very old vines which will need replanting shortly. The first parcel is located in Penajóia, Lamego municipality and the other two in Alvações do Corgo (municipality of Santa Marta Penaguião). The wines, produced from these two parcels are being bottled since 2010, are produced mainly from grapes from the old vines. The former (Penajóia) starts the production with the 2013 vintage. The beginning of the production saw many problems and surprises, but the wines ended up seeing the light of the day. They were made to express as closely as possible the expression characteristics of the different parcels. All our work, from the vineyard to the cellar, was aimed at making wines that are the true expression of the grapes grown in those vineyards, where we seek to achieve the best from the vine, the soil and the environment generally.