Port ProDuCers anD shiPPers 231Ramos Pinto
Adriano Ramos Pinto (Vinhos) SA
avenida Ramos Pinto, 380, 4400-266 Vila nova de Gaia
tel. (351) 223 707 000
http://www.ramospinto.pt
Ramos Pinto has long been a company with foresight. In 1880 Adriano Ramos Pinto
founded a Port shipper in his own name with the idea of tapping into the competitive
Brazilian market. At this time most wine was shipped in bulk and little attention was paid
either to marketing, presentation or image. Ramos Pinto backed his sales drive with a
series of rather risqué posters depicting scantily clad women. Tentação (temptation) was the
byword – the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would certainly draw the line at
such advertising today! The campaign succeeded and Ramos Pinto managed to sell its wines
at twice the price of Ports normally shipped to Brazil.
The firm suffered more than most when the Brazilian market collapsed in the 1920s,
but continued in family hands. In the early 1970s José Ramos Pinto Rosas was among the
first to enter the brave new world of the Douro Superior when he purchased Quinta de
Santa Maria (now Quinta da Ervamoira) for the company (see page 121). Throughout the
late 1970s and early 1980s, Ramos Pinto was at the forefront of research and development
in the Douro, while its ornate, brightly painted lodge on the waterfront at Gaia remained
in a time warp without a computer in sight. In 1990 the Champagne house Louis
Roederer stepped in to purchase a controlling stake in the firm and began introducing
some necessary changes in the management of the company as well as maintaining a
commitment to investment in the Douro. Winemaker João Nicolau de Almeida (son
of Fernando Nicolau de Almeida of Barca Velha fame and a direct descendant of the
founders) exudes enthusiasm for all the work that has been carried out at Ramos Pinto’s
four widely spread Douro quintas: Bom Retiro and Urtiga in the Rio Torto and Bons Ares
and Ervamoira in the Douro Superior. The latter, threatened for many years by a hydro-
electric dam project, was saved following the discovery of Palaeolithic rock engravings in
the Côa valley. In 1998 it was declared a World Heritage Site.
Ramos Pinto is better known for its wood Ports than for vintages. Single-quinta
vintages from Quinta de Ervamoira can be impressively ripe and minty in style. Fruit
from Quinta da Ervamoira provides the basis for a rich, candied ten-year-old tawny, with
Bom Retiro producing one of the finest of all twenty-year-olds: pale, delicate, poised
and supremely refined. The company produces ‘Collector’, a ripe, spicy, reserve Port and
also a rich, unfiltered LBV, which has the capacity to age. A 1927 ‘LBV’ from Bom
Retiro (bottled in 1932) was still alive though soft and creamy with age when the cork
was drawn in 1998. In line with its forward-thinking approach, Ramos Pinto was one
of the first of the major Port shippers to spend time and effort in producing a range of
unfortified Douro wines (see Chapter 7).