Our Wines
Our Wines
We make natural, additive- and chemical-free wines. We intentionally use artisanal techniques, chemically-free grown grapes from low-yielding, old vines, planted at an altitude of 600m in the São Mamede mountain range. We create wines that challenge the traditional understanding of (high-volume production) wines.
In the vineyard, we choose not to use irrigation. This allows the vines to develop condensed aromas in the grapes. We rely on nature to balance our wines’ acidity. We don’t use chemicals to kill weeds and we rely on nature to control pests.
And yes, we are happy to have wildlife come eat some of our grapes. Because they know how tasty those grapes are!
In the cellar, neither the fermentation nor storage vats are temperature controlled, and the only yeast fermenting the sugar in our must are authentic, autochtonous, wild yeasts. We do not add anything to the wines, relying entirely on our winemaking skills and the quality of our grapes. That means no additives, enzymes, industrially produced bacteria, sugar, fruit juice, colourants, thickeners, stabilisers, wood chips, or artificial tannins …are added to our wines, even though it would be perfectly legal to do so – and we wouldn’t even have to declare it on the label! And obviously, we add no sulphites.
The result is entirely natural wines. We don’t try to trick the grape must into producing a wine that tastes from somewhere else. We are proud that we produce wines in this wonderful region – and we want them to taste exactly how nature intended them to taste.
Trincadeira Orange de Noir
Rhubarb custard tart in a glass
Trincadeira is a wonderful autochthonous Portuguese grape variety, usually used to make Port – or very full-bodied, rich red wines.
What did we do?
Obviously the wine is not red,… let’s call it pink-orange-salmon. That’s because we crushed and then immediately pressed the grapes as soon as they were harvested. That means that only very few of the anthocyanins in the grape skin, which give red wine its colour, were released. Thus the wine became this unusual colour.
We then fermented the wine in a inox vat, which means everything you taste in the wine is exactly what was present in the must.
Fieldblend Pet Nat
Cherry Fizz!
This wine is spritzy, fun and fruity. Not your typical red at all. And fantastic served slightly chilled on a warm autumn evening.
What did we do?
The base for this wine comes from grapes harvested on the lower half of the vineyard. Nobody knows exactly which grape varieties are planted there… which makes playing with these grapes very exciting.
We blended two already fermenting musts from two different harvest days to create this wine. The goal here was not to aim for a specific taste, but a specific sugar content of the still fermenting must. We then bottled this. In the bottle, the fermentation continued..
Fortified by Nature
Shaped by the sun, wind and rain
Aged in a big glass bottle, which we left lying in the field. Exposed to the sun, the heat, the cold, the rain. And we didn’t forget to “close” it! We wanted it to breathe our fresh mountain air.
What did we do?
We started off by making a red wine: crushed the grapes and then let them start their fermentation. After a few days, while the fermentation was still ongoing, we removed some free run must. This created a very sweet, and still fermenting, red wine. Our aim was to make a desert wine, so we wanted to preserve the sweetness. Thus we stopped the fermentation to avoid the wine becoming a dry red wine by adding grape spirit, locally produced by one of our neighbours!
Carbonic Maceration Trincadeira
Taste the Fruit Bomb
Strawberries and cream? Or raspberries… We let you decide. Smooth and fruity, joyful and light: A great wine to have at a Sunday picnic in the vineyard.
What did we do?
We first selected the most beautiful bunches of grapes our Trincadeira vines had produced this year. Instead of pressing the grapes, we carefully layered them in an airtight inox tank – and then filled the tank with CO2. The result? The grapes started fermenting – inside the grapes! And without any oxygen. This fancy technique is called “Carbonic Maceration” and the result is a wine that is fruity and fresh, without being reductive.
Aragonez in Clay
Moon Trip Wine
Fruity, fresh, delightfully acidic… and made in a white clay barrel that is called Luna. It’s a bit like a trip to the moon and back.
What did we do?
We started by hand harvesting tempranillo grapes and then crushing them. Leaving to ferment naturally with ambient yeasts before pressing them. We then transferred the wine into Luna, our big, white clay vessel. It’s a bit like an amphora, though the clay is finer and therefore does not need any raising or other coating.
Fieldblend in Stein
Anything in the field… hop on in!
Fresh and refreshing: this wine is aged in old steins or stoneware fermentation vessels, originally used for beer. It doesn’t taste a bit like beer though!
What did we do?
We harvested the grapes in the lower part of the vineyard: A wild mix of different grape varieties. Together we crushed them and let them ferment. After pressing we transferred them into the large stoneware vessel. No wood ever touched them.
White Grapes Fermented
Why not ferment the grapes?
Zing and fruity… naturally clear, wonderful summer field blend that was fermented with full grapes
What did we do?
We harvested the grapes in the vineyard, where there are various white varieties interplanted with red ones. We crushed and immediately pressed most of the grapes. All? No. Almost all! We left around 10% of the grapes untouched – and added them directly to the fermenting must. The grapes remained in place (with a significant ullage in the inox vessel) until we racked the wine in spring.