Our vineyard Chão dos Eremitas, with more than 50 years old, is located in an unique and symbolic part of Alentejo: it was at the base of the Serra d’Ossa mountain that the São Paulo hermits first planted their vines. These wines refect the Alentejo of years past.
Growing Conditions
Grapes under certified integrated production regime without the use of herbicides.
“Chão dos Eremitas” Vineyard planted in: 1970.
Altitude: 256-267 m
Soils: Granitic - Non-Humic Litolics, little evolved and formed soils, sandy texture, without aggregates, slightly acidic.
Location: Southern foothills of Serra d’Ossa.
History: This place is special, you can feel it!
Two streams bring the rainwater from the Serra keeping the ground cool in the torrid Alentejo heat, never lowering the water table below 5 meters. Here is where the vine used to be planted, the Chão dos Eremitas, “Chão”, an old term for flat areas, and “Eremitas” referring to the Hermit monks of São Paulo’s order. Here, there’s evidence of uninterrupted wine production since the 14th century. XIV. The vineyard was so important that a Papal Bull in 1397 exempts the “Pauperes Eremitas” from paying taxes in their vineyards. But archeology goes further, discovering the only Phoenician wine amphora of Portugal’s inland, dating to the 8th century BC. This links this place to wine about 900 years before the arrival of the Romans, in which there are 3,000 years of history linked to wine.
Winemaking
100% Tinta Carvalha. Tinta Carvalha is a varietal from the ancient varieties of the Alentejo vineyard,half-sister of Castelão and Moreto, daughter of the crossing between Sarigo and Alfrocheiro Preto.
This 100% Tinta Carvalha, the only one monovarietal in Portugal. A bewildering wine, that shown the role of this varietal in the old vineyards of Alentejo. Freshness and purity.
The grapes are selected in a sorting table, 30% whole bunch 70% destemmed, fall through gravity on the vat. Spontaneous fermentation and maceration for 40 days in skins, followed by ageing 12 months in neutral barrels.
Winemaker: António Maçanita
Winemaker: Sandra Sárria
Aging
12 months in neutral barrels
Nose
Intense fresh nose, notes of bitter red fruit, pomegranate notes of graphite.
Palate
Very fine tense attack, elegant with a lot of depth and tension. A red that shows that Alentejo can be something else.
Appearance
Colour very open, ruby.
Food Pairing
A red with good acidity, good for complex fat fishes and pot meats