19 years ago Vincent and I had the (outlandish) and romantic idea to purchase a ruin of an agricultural estate on the Douro River, having fallen in love with the dramatic beauty while hiking in the region and afterwards searching for a place to produce our own wine. Vincent is Burgundian and wanted to sow his oats elsewhere than France, I am Californian and at the time was terribly in love with Italy, so my Latin lover/husband made sure I was not too close to the country that I so passionately loved, and voila` we landed in Portugal. The wildest ideas oftentimes turn into solid reality, if you are ready to pull up your sleeves and work on something that is yours. I still feel like a "pioneer" with all of the challenges, sometimes bittersweet, in something that at times resembles the Wild West, but today I am smitten by Portugal and the Douro Valley...the physical landscape, the people, the lifestyle and the potential to make world-class fortified and table wines, namely Port and Douro D.O.C. red table wine.
With a very dedicated work force, we have Jorge Alves, talented winemaker and general manager bar none; assistant winemaker with ditto great talent and drive Hugo Fonseca; dynamic and very congenial tour guide Monia; cook Adelaide, who puts some of the most savory delicious rustic food I've tasted on the table for our work staff and for us; vineyard manager Joaquim and crew who labor in the vineyard and make our viticultural success possible; our horse, Tedo, named logically after the river Tedo, who is the only thing that we have even close to mechanization in the vineyard; and our bird logo, in reverence to the migratory bird oenanthe leucurus, that vagabonds like us with purpose between continents, and sings the song of Quinta do Tedo. My blog will be a link for you to understand us more, and to share with you what is happening at our quinta and in the Douro Valley, from what makes our wine so outstanding to travel tips, to recipes, to humorous (now but not then) vignettes re: our experiences thus far and, with that said, bem-vindo a Quinta do Tedo!