Douro wines 255Quinta do Passadouro
Vale de Mendiz, 5085-101 Pinhão
tel: (351) 254 731 246
http://www.quinta-do-passadouro.com
Deep in the Pinhão valley, Quinta do Passadouro makes Port and Douro wines from
twenty hectares of vineyard, much of it old and interplanted. The wines, expertly made
by Jorge Serôdio Borges (see Pintas below), include a fragrant, fruit-driven dry white and
two firm, well-defined reds. Quinta do Passadouro Reserva is outstanding with power,
elegance and poise.
Pintas
Wine & Soul Lda
av. Julio Freitas 6, Vale de Mendiz, 5085-101 Pinhão
tel. (351) 254 731 948
Husband and wife team Jorge Serôdio Borges and Sandra Tavares de Silva are experienced
winemakers. He works for Quinta do Passadouro and she has a day job at Quinta Vale
Dona Maria as well as overseeing her family estate, Quinta da Chocapalha, in Estremadura.
In 2001 they bought an old Port lodge together and began making wine from a two-hectare
plot of seventy-year-old vines interplanted with more than thirty different grape varieties.
Pintas, meaning the ‘spots’ or splashes of wine found during vintage, is the result. This
is a powerful wine; often impenetrable when young, it needs time to emerge and express
itself. From neighbouring vineyards in the Pinhão valley, Pintas Character is softer, more
accessible red yet tight-knit and very expressive of the local terroir. Guru is a soft, peachy dry
white made from grapes grown near Murça at an altitude of 550 metres. This trio has now
been joined by Quinta da Manoella, a characteristically dense Douro red with fine-grained
tannins, from a hundred-year-old family-owned vineyard replanted after phylloxera.
Poeira
Quinta do Poeira
5060-283 Provesende, sabrosa
tel: (351) 939 506 699
http://www.poeira.pt
Jorge Moreira spent six years working alongside Jerry Luper at Real Companhia Velha
before starting out on his own. In 2001 he purchased a small, predominantly north-facing
vineyard (Quinta da Terra Feita da Cima) in the Pinhão Valley and now has nine hectares of
his own vines. With three hectares of vinha velha (old vines) at its core, Poeira is powerful
but has great finesse. Moreira’s aim is to manage the natural power of the Douro in order
to produce something more elegant than some of the heavily extracted wines that have
appeared in recent years. Pó de Poeira is a firm, middle-weight wine for earlier drinking.
Jorge Moreira also works as winemaker for Quinta de la Rosa (see below).