S. joao da pesqueira (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week was my 30th anniversary, and maybe because 30 is a round number that ends with a zero, I felt I needed to share with you some thoughts I had before going to bed on this July 24th.

I spent the day in S. João da Pesqueira, my home town, where I was born and I grew up, the place where I come whenever I can. From the window of my house I can see the small town center of S. João da Pesqueira and I am thinking in what way has changed the life of the people living here for the last 30 years. One of the things that surprises me the most and that I really feel sorry for is that children don’t play freely on the streets anymore. One of the most exciting things that I remember from my youth was to go with my friends to the street for a couple of hours before dinner. All we needed was a ball or a random toy we found in our houses. At the end of the game, we would be dirty and scratched, with our clothes totally nasty, but our mums would still receive us with two open arms.

The second thing that I miss is respect for elder people. I think new generations doesn’t respect elder people as much as we did. I will tell you why. S. João da Pesqueira is a small place with a high percentage of elder people. I remember, when I was younger, that we would always say hello or good morning or just hi, when we saw an elder gentleman or lady walking on the street. Thirty years later, it looks like elder people are more a kind of a burden rather than the inspirational chiefs of our society. And that’s a shame as we are all on the way to get elder and if we don’t educate our society to respect elder people, we can’t expected to be respected when we are older.

Location in Portugal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A third thing that stands out for me tonight is to see that my town is not creating enough jobs for everyone that wants to live here. In 1983 we had a very generous percentage of the population working on agriculture, mostly vine growing. During these 30 years, people tried to find a job out of agriculture, where they would have easier working conditions, not as cold in winter or hot in summer, not as intense and exhausting. S. João da Pesqueira needed to attract imigrants during the last decades to work on the vineyards, as locals did not want to. And at the same time these imigrants were arriving, the natives were not finding a job in the secondary or tertiary sectors. And from time to time I was aware of a friend from school that needed to leave town to find a job in the city. I would love to see, during the next thirty years a more developed town, where eveybody out of the 8.000 people that live here, would have a place to work if they wanted to stay here.

To finish this list of four thoughts on my birthday, I am very happy to realize that Pesqueira is a great place to live. It’s quiet, beautiful, people are nice, genuine, authentic. People in general tend to be modest and conservative, as they were used to hard times during many decades. It’s true that we live far away from urbans centers, but in Pesqueira people have fun on their own way and, what I think is the most important thing in life, we know what happiness is.

Oscar

Today I was in one of those places that you don’t really know if you will ever have a chance to visit during your life, though you know that you really wanted to. It is a well respected place, for its history, tradition and impact on the society. That place is the Harvard University. Here, I had the chance, together with my friend Luiz Alberto from The Wine Hub, to give a seminar about Port Wine and the Douro. All came from nothing (as almost all good things in life), when I was confronted with the possibility of heading to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to share with the Wine Club from the Harvard Law School what is Port Wine, where is the Douro and what makes both so special.

All this resulted in an amazing experience. The students at the seminar were well interested in knowing more about Port, which some of them, were trying for the first time. Seeing the faces and feeling the excitement of this young and clever crowd of future judges, lawyers, senators or entrepreneurs, makes me believe that there future ahead of Port Wine is going to continue as long and bright as it has been. Some days are special, and today is one of those for me. Cheers!

Oscar

Image via Wikipedia

Those who have searched for Quevedo on a web search engine, have already noticed that there is a prominent writer with the same name of this family, Quevedo. Fracisco de Quevedo is not dedicated to winemaking but literature, as he was one of the most important Spanish writers of the XVII century. He lived surrounded by nobility at the royal court, providing him with the necessary time and conditions to study theology and to dedicate time to write.

I made some research to check if there is any connection between the Quevedo family that lives in the Douro for some generations and the family of this Spanish writer. As expected, I couldn’t find any kind of relation. Maybe some extra research is necessary. But for now, I want to develop my knowledge about the work of this writer with who I share the surname, and for that I will start by reading “La vida del buscón” or in English, “History of the life of the Swindler”, Francisco de Quevedo’s masterpiece!

Oscar

Between late 2009 and June 2010 I had a kind of bi-weekly ritual of organizing wine tasting dinners during which we used to discover more about the wines not only made in the Douro, but also in other regions of Portugal and of the world. In these tastings it used to participate between 8 to 10 people, all old friends I met at the university, with one exception, Thomas Kern. At that time, Thomas was the consul of Germany in Porto, and fortunately for all of us, he tremendously enriched the tastings as he knows the Douro valley producers much better than anyone of us. He was a valuable piece on these events. He is also passionate about wine and his straightforward and clear view of what is good and bad in a wine, became our tastings lessons of wine for the rest of attendees.

Unfortunately, the German consulate closed in Porto and Thomas went back to his motherland. Notwithstanding, we thought that it was important to maintain a kind of regularity in our wine tastings, even if it is only one tasting every semester and if we have to travel 4.000 km for this to happen.

So, guess where we were last week-end? Right, in Berlin hanging out with Thomas while increasing our knowledge about German white wines and Portuguese red wines. As Thomas knows very well the Douro and the Portuguese culture, as he lived there for four year, I challenged him to stand out three things that make the Douro different. Check the video and discover, what in the view of a foreigner, makes the Douro special.

Oscar

At that time, it was not possible that a Port Wine producer headquartered in the Douro exported his production. All Port Wine exports had to be done through the lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia, which were mostly owned by non-Portuguese families. In 1986, when Portugal joined the UE, fortunately the legislation changed and the Douro producers could start to export allover.

When my great grand-father was in charge of the winery, the international market was a kind of mirage, desired but inaccessible (due to the legal constraints explained above). Therefore, my family had to turn to the domestic market to sell its production of bottled wine. As we couldn’t sell all the production in bottles, we also sold it in pipas to the exporters located in Gaia.

At that time there was not so much specialization as we see nowadays, so the family grew other cultures, such as, olives, chestnuts, almonds and walnuts, beside vegetables and cereals for own consumption. We also made still wine, but only for local distribution because at that time still wine wasn’t very qualitative and was completely uninteresting for foreigners.

Lot of things changed when Avô Raúl died in December 30th, 1960. The property was dispersed among 6 sons, and as many decided to sell their parts to people out of the family, the grape growing and Port Wine making was tremendously compromised. Among all the sons, only my grand-mother Josefina along with her husband, grand-dad Joao, they decided to carry-over the family passion and were the only ones remaining in the Douro, dedicating their life to the wine business.

When I look for what we still have from my great grand-father Raúl, there are not that many things I can find. My parents own his last house, which we are fixing to convert it into a guest house. We still have some of the land he previously owned, but in terms of Port, the legacy is weak. How sad.. However, it slightly changed few months ago when a gentleman came to our winery and gave us an inherited old bottle of Port Wine, from Quinta de Santo António, made by our Avô Raúl. We felt as we were receiving the biggest treasure in the world. That was a tremendously historical piece that connected us to our ancestors.

Recently, as the original cork of this bottle was in very bad conditions, we decided to recork it, not closing the bottle without sipping a few drops of the wine. It was wonderful, it had a familiar taste!

Oscar

My friend, Ryan Opaz, from Catavino is an old family friend of the Allens and made formal introductions between us a few months ago. Having met the Allens at their family estate in Porto, I was shocked by their long and detailed past. Enclosed within ancient walls, their estate holds an incredible amount of untold history not only of their family, but of the Douro and Port Wine. Any wine romantic or historian would be equally impressed once visited Villar d’Allen and heard from José Alberto the stories of his ancestors.

A few week ago, I was honored by an invitation to dine at their house. Walking through the living-room, and the corridors, I felt like I was traveling back 200 years in time, visiting the heart of a British family committed to Port Wine. Then, I went to see the cellar, and in all honesty, I could not believe what I was seeing. A collection of very old bottles from the family archives, some dating back to the beginning of the XIX century. All of the bottles were standing. Not one ancient relic was laying down! Why? Because the family believes Port ages better if it is not in contact with the cork.

And to finish the night, José Alberto grabbed from the cellar a bottle of 1827 Quinta do Noval. When took in my very first breathe of this wine, my hands were shaking, I felt like I was tasting ancient history. This was the live legacy of a family with a incredible past and that hopefully, will continue with the family tradition of bottling and shipping Port well into the future. If you visit Porto, make sure you find some time to o to the Villar d’Allen’s house. I can assure you won’t regret! More photos from Villar d’Allen.

Oscar

Enjoy, at least as much as I did!

Oscar

1. Children still know from where chickens and potatoes come from and what a real goat looks like

2. Nature is almost untouched with wild animals living just in the outskirts of towns and villages

3. Dancing with an African girl is a bigger lesson than a whole week in Ibiza

4. They make the best no-alcoholic beverage in the world: bissap (have some with me to Portugal!)

5. It smells like earth, species and happy people

Lets continue this list, leave your sentence and I’ll add it to the post.

Oscar

In the center and north of Europe and US, regions that represent over 90% of Port Wine consumption, it is pretty common to find in restaurants, at least, one or two references of Port Wine. Actually, I dare to say that in Holland, Belgium, UK and maybe even Denmark, good restaurants have a broader offer of Port Wine than Portuguese restaurants do (for a Portuguese native it’s not hard to find an explanation for this, as we love to consume everything that is not national; whisky rocks in Portugal).

However, in the same article, you could read “Premium Tawnies should be priced like other wines, not spirits! Ridiculous markups (more than 4 times costs) are the surest means of killing sales.” This is probably right, even though I am not the best person to talk about it, as a producer I want my wine to be available at the lowest price. Is there anyone to defend restaurants?!?

Oscar

Have fun!

Oscar