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 Marão role is crucial for the weather READ MORE

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 home village. For our vineyards, we started converting them READ MORE

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! Over 200 grape varieties exist in the Douro, the READ MORE

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 humans throughout history. Some believe READ MORE

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. There it goes without more delay, we READ MORE

Few months ago we talked here about closures, advantages and disadvantages of using cork, screw-cap or a plastic plug to close a bottle of wine. The major disadvantage of the cork is the possibility of TCA contamination, which develops an off flavour in READ MORE

Cork plays a critical role in the wine business. It has historically been the most used closure and nowadays it closes around 70% of all the wine bottles in the world. However, in the last decades both screw caps (made out of aluminum, READ MORE

Over the last centuries the Douro has built up its reputation as a top quality wine region due to the huge success of Port, more specifically Red Port. Since 1756, when Marquês de Pombal started delimiting and regulating the Douro, people are aware READ MORE

Have you noticed, during the last time you visited the Douro valley, a fast growing evergreen tree with yellow flowers that may remind you of big bunches of white grapes? This non-native tree, Acacia dealbata (Portuguese nickname is Mimosa), loves to grow on READ MORE

Some years ago my sister came home and said do my father: “Hey dad, why don’t we convert the olive grove into organic production?”. My dad looked at her and replied with another question: why should we do that?”. And Cláudia said something READ MORE