Did you read the previous post? If so, you’ve noticed that we were challenging you to guess what we will do in the area in front of the winery. In the comments’ section, you can see that Andy Velebil bet on a white grapes vineyard. Well, the answer is not correct, but in other place, we are actually planting a white grapes vines. The photo show the bulldozer preparing the soil of Quinta da Trovisca, and making the traditional terraces from the Douro, “patamares” or  “sucalcos” in Portuguese. We will plant Viosinho, Rabo-de-Ovelha Rabigato and Gouveio (also known as Verdelho) in March. But that will be shown in further posts. Stay tuned!

Some thoughts about 2009 Harvest:

• generally there was few quantity per vine
• the quality of the grapes for Port is excellent
• the quality of the grapes for Douro wines is good, but will age early
• it was necessary over 750 kilograms to make 550 liters (1 pipa) of wine
• the sugar content of the grapes was high, resulting in quite alcoholic wines
• the colors of the wines are deep and dark - some very promising Ports
• after some years focusing only on still red wines, this year we made 2.000 liters of still white wine

Now it is your turn. Do you have any questions or comments?

Oscar

Although this rain is coming a little bit early and is concerning us, the most important grapes were already collected. So the best wines should not be affected by these drops. The rain can’t be an excuse for its quality!

It is now raining but hopefully by tomorrow morning we can leave our houses and accomplish our mission: to bring grapes to the winery!

Oscar

From 9am to 6pm GMT all the steps of a harvesting in the Douro will be broadcast, including the fortification of must for Port Wine. At 5pm there will be an audio connection with the conference room in the BWT, where Ryan Opaz, from Catavino, will be speaking about Social Media in Action.

The S. João da Pesqueira’s Town Hall is providing the technology and video experts for the realization of the live streaming to the BTW. This last one offers the  opportunity to on/off traders and press visitors, to taste small productions of exclusive wines. Quevedo has great expectations about this wine fair as a way to find an importer or distributor for its wines and Ports in the United Kingdom.

After launching the first Port Wine producer blog, Quevedo (which currently grows 250 acres of wines and 50 acres of organic olive trees in S. João da Pesqueira, Douro, Portugal) reinforces its commitment with new technologies using them as a direct and interactive way to communicate with the wine lovers, becoming the first Port producer to stream live the harvest.

We would like to invite you to visit our winery and our vineyards in the Douro valley.

In the last 4 years we have only made medium sweet Port out of the white grapes, but this year we decided to make Douro still white wine ad also a small quantity of Dry Port.

Finally  the weather in the Douro is cooling down, with the nights getting colder and windier. After some months without a drop, it rained this evening for an hour. This water was really welcomed and helped to dust the leaves and bunches. I hope it does not rain more for the next days as we will start harvesting Quinta Vale d’Agodinho tomorrow. We need some extra hands, anyone wants to join us?!?

Oscar

I have been spending this week making wine tastings in different places of the country. It is my first time in Denmark and I am having a great time. The interesting part of the trip occurred yesterday in Oksbøl (a small town in the West of Denmark), where took place a wine tasting of American and Port wines for the members of the local wine club.

There were 100 hundred people at the room when I challenged them to pronounce my last name, Quevedo, loud with lot of emotion.  You can´t imagine how happy I felt when I hear them pronouncing it correctly. Yes, Quevedo can! I was almost in tears. Here is the video made by Elizabeth Rice of DFV Wines.

Dan, the very nice manager of the local supermarket Super Brugsen, gave a bottle of our White Port for the person who could better pronounce Quevedo. I´ll soon post his photo. I got it, here is the photo of Karsten Hjorth Soerensen.

Thank you Dan and Colin (Head of West Denmark Tourism) for organizing of the tasting.

Oscar

Around 1pm of Thursday July 16th I will fly from Madrid to New York. It’s the third time I will go to NYC, and the first with the purpose to meet wine bloggers and better understand the wine consumption habits of the New Yorkers. I will probably dedicate some time for tourism, but that just if I don’t have any other wine related plan.

Still in NY, on the 22nd July evening Viniportugal hosts a Portuguese Wine Tasting in the recently opened Portuguese restaurant Aldea. We will have our new baby, the Quevedo Vintage 2007 for tasting.

On the 23rd we will fly to San Francisco, where on the morning of the 24th (my birthday) starts the American Wine Bloggers Conference. I’m so excited, I can’t wait to meet those faces I’m used to see online, with who I change emails, comments and twits. If the last year’s European Wine Bloggers Conference was a complete success, and we had just a couple of months experience in blogging, now there in Sonoma and Napa, exactly 1 year after our debut, we will get even more from the meeting.

From San Francisco I will fly to Seattle on July 28th, where I will visit Roy Hersh. Roy is one of the leading authorities in Port Wine in the US and I have talked about him for a handful of times here in our blog. He is organizing a tasting with other Port Wine lovers and participants in the For The Love of Port forum from Seattle’s area. I have seen in the forum and in previous offline tastings that they just bring for tasting great old Ports, which almost always show very well. This is a huge challenge for us because we will all  compare Quevedo’s Ports with others from very well established houses with centuries of tradition.

We’ll finish this three week trip in Minneapolis, from July 31st to August 4th. Nadia studied there for 6 months her degree and made very good friends, who have already visited us in previous years. But as I couldn’t miss an opportunity for a meeting or a tasting, I will probably attend to a Port Wine tasting, where I’ll show our juices.

I’m looking forward to this trip. They will be 20 very intense and busy days, which I hope to leave and feel one by one, with time to breath and most important, with time to write you posts so you can know how our wines are showing in the land of Uncle Sam!

If you, dear reader of our blog, live in any of these cities where I will stay, please send me an email (oscar at quevedoportwine.com) and lets share a glass of wine, Port or just water if my liver demands it!

Oscar

Oscar

Very good weather conditions during the flowering (warm temperatures and slow wind) originated a high rate of fertilized berries. This situation seldom occurs because during the month of May temperatures are unstable and there’s a high probability of rain.

This year, nearly all of the flowers of our bunches were fertilized. This becomes a big issue in varietals like Touriga Franca because its small little bunches get so packed, that when the raindrops go through the berries, they may cause the decay of the insider berries. The consequence of this is that these rotted bunches can’t be harvested. We crossed our fingers, expecting a fly attack that reduced the number of berries in the bunch but this did not happen and now we have too many berries in each bunch.

During the last years no problems of decay have occurred. This year the bunch is not so well protected but we hope the weather is by our side and doesn’t rain a couple of weeks before the harvest.

Thank you Eduardo for pointing this out.

Oscar

During the last weeks sudden weather changes have affected the vinegrowing of the Douro Valley. The last days of May were warm and not windy at all, which is perfect for pollination. We were really happy because we thought we would not need to spray our vines and therefore we could minimize the use of chemicals in our grapes. But between the 4th and the 6th of June it rained a lot, increasing the humidity, though with very low temperaturas (under 60º F or 16º C), which is cold enough to keep powdery mildew and oidium away from the vines. Between the 7th and the 9th of June the sun came back, temperatures increased to 80º F (or 27º C), which is quite dangerous due to the high level of humidity on the leaves and on the soil. But again from the 10th until the 14th of June it rained and the temperature went down. Today is hot again, temperature is well over 90º F (or 32º C), and we are worried about the weather. We did not spray the vines yet, we have just used sulfur powder to combat oidium. We are not protected against powdery mildew and some signs of worry are growing on my dad’s face…

Oscar

P.S. As suggested by one of our readers in Canada, we are also showing the temperatures in Celsius scale and not just in Fahrenheit scale. Thank you Steve for your suggestion!

I will come back in the following weeks with more pictures of the vineyards. I promise!

Oscar Quevedo