It belongs to RAMOS PINTO and is located close to the Spanish border. Even the people at Ramos Pinto refer to this valley as “Africa”, because it gets so hot in the summer.
In the early 1970s the management of Ramos Pinto realized that labor costs were getting higher, as many young Portuguese men were either fighting in the colonial ways in Africa or had chosen Germany and France to earn their money. The shortage of labor led to higher wages – and while other wine producing countries implemented more and more mechanization around their vineyards, this wasn’t possible in the tight, steep slopes of the Douro Valley.
The chairman of Ramos Pinto, José António Ramos Pinto Rosas, spent many hours over maps of the Douro Valley and was looking for a flat, not yet developed space that would provide the possibility to create vineyards that could be easier harvested. He knew that he had to go to the Douro Superior, the most eastern part of the demarcated zone. He finally chose a place called Quinta de Santa Maria. Normally, if a company buys a Quinta, the name is maintained – because Quintas come often with long and amazing histories and the buyers pay also for this. However, Ramos Pinto wan’t interested in the past of the Quinta, only in the future – and so they gave the place a new name: Quinta da Ervamoira (as far as I know, “Ervamoira” means “Weevil” in Portuguese, a small bug). It’s located near the small Coa Rive, which gives it’s name to the Coa Valley. The closest village nearby is a place with the beautiful and difficult name Muxagata.
It was a great opportunity to plan the perfect Quinta from scratch. It was a lot of unused land, over 200 hectares. It would be a tremendous investment for a small company like Ramos Pinto – and they wanted to get it absolutely right.
At that time it was still typical that vineyards were full of different grape varieties… some of them had 30, 40 different grapes – which makes it very difficult to chose the best moment for the harvest, as some grapes will be overripe, others are perfectly ripe and then there are not-yet-ripe grapes in the same vineyard.
José António Ramos Pinto Rosas got his nephew João Nicolau de Almeida on board, and together they spent years and years experimenting with grapes. Finally they came up with their list of what they thought best grape varieties for the Ervamoira-project: Touriga Naçional, Touriga Francesa, Tinto Cão, Tinta Roriz and Tinta Barroca. These were the grapes they decided to use for the new Quinta. When the results from their research were made public, a lot of controversy started up. When the World Bank wanted to support this poverty-stricken region with a major investment program, the World Bank used the research from Ramos Pinto to decide the planting of which grapes would be financed. So we see now new vineyards mainly be planted with these 5 grape varieties. Some thoughts from me: I’m very thankful that they both decided that Touriga Naçional is the best grape of them all – because I love this grape and whenever I smell a wine that contains this grape, I smell the Douro and feel happy. However, I think the treasure of the Douro Valley was always the massive variety of grapes – and I would be very sad if many of these small, unknown grape varieties will be extinct in a few years, as they will be replaced with the “Top 5” grapes. I love “field blend” wines that contain many, often dozens, of different grape varieties. I hope that some farmers will continue to use the old grape varieties. As mentioned, the research was done only for Ervamoira – but then for reason of being lazy/being easy those results were used all over the Douro – which we knows have a ton of micro-climates – so other grapes might be better suited in the Baixo Corgo, for example – but the World Bank didn’t care, and that’s why we now see these 5 grapes wherever we look. But still, it also helped the farmers to know what to plant and therefore mishaps were avoided…
The Quinta has an overall size of 234 hectares and 150 thereof are planted with wine. The altitude of the vineyards is between 110 and 340 meters. As most wines were planted around 1980 the average age of the vines is somewhere around 35 years. 10% of the grapes are white grapes; 90% are red. From the red grapes, not surprisingly 32% are of Touriga Nacional, this being the most favorite grape established during the research mission. 22% are of Touriga Franca, 11% of Tinta Roriz, 7% of Tinta Barroca, 7% of Tinta da Barca and 21% others.
To get to Quinta da Ervamoira isn’t easy. First of all, you need to get an invite from Ramos Pinto. It doesn’t cost to ask nicely and hope for the best. But even then you might not be able to get to the Quinta – the roads are so bad that your usual rental car wouldn’t stand a chance. That’s why the nice people of Ramos Pinto normally greet visitors near the tourist information in Muxagata and drive them then by Jeep to the Quinta. Alone the drive is already worth all the hassle.
There is something magic about this place – having a marvelous lunch in the shadow ion the porch; overlooking the valley – just amazing. To drink the wines of Ramos Pinto, knowing the grapes were harvested a few meters away -nothing can beat this moment.
The Quinta also houses a small museum with Ramos Pinto and Coa-Valley related items. Shortly after the Quinta was fully planted and ready to produce wine, the Portuguese government decided to build a dam that would have flooded the whole valley. All the work and invested money would have disappeared under water. But in a turn of events that Hollywood couldn’t have staged more dramatic, some prehistoric rock-etchings were discovered. A very large amount of paintings (around 5,000), giving a nice glimpse into the early days of mankind. UNCESO declared the Coa Valley as Heritage Site – and also the Portuguese Government changed and the new Government decided not to build the dam.
So whoever scratched these painting over the millennia between 22,000 and 8,000 BC has helped Ramos Pinto to maintain the Quinta da Ervamoira and therefore the museum honors these stone etchings with an own section.
The Quinta da Ervamoira gives it’s name also to the 10 Year old Tawnies of Ramos Pinto.
By the way, while it’s normally forbidden to to use irrigation to water the vines in the Douro, the Quinta da Ervamoira has the approval to water the plants. “Africa” is just too hot and dry… without irrigation it would most likely not be possible to grow wine over there.
Ervamoira On-Site Museum
Quinta de Ervamoira – Vila Nova de Foz Côa
Phone +351 279 759 229 /Mobile +351 935 263 490/+351 932 992 533 / Fax +351 223 775 099
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