The Quinta of Vesúvio has a long and history. António Bernardo Ferreira bought the property in 1823, at that time called Quinta das Figueiras. The property was mostly covered with wild scrub stretching up the mountainside and an abundance of fig trees, which gave it its name. He felt that this property had enormous potential as vineyards. It took his team of five hundred workers thirteen years to carve terraces out of the steep slopes and plant thousands of vines. In 1827, Ferreira built the winery, with its eight granite lagares (large, open vats or troughs), in which wine grapes are crushed by foot to this day, and eight chestnut vats, each capable of holding the equivalent of one lagar of Port. This original winery is where all of Vesúvio’s Port is still made. The Quinta do Vesuvio been in the Symington family since 1989 and it totals about 326 hectares, of which 133 are planted with vines.
This is Vesúvio’s second-tier wine and its is named after the estate’s dovecote, a structure intended to house pigeons or doves, or “pombal” in Portuguese, which is surrounded by vineyards. Unlike the first-tier fruit, the grapes are transported to the Quinta do Sol winery for processing and fermentation. The contrast between the property’s quotas provides the wines with unparalleled structure, complexity and aging potential, as well as the preservation of traditional wine production methods, which highlight Quinta do Vesuvio as the only one that actively continues to create its wines with this base. A Quinta of enchanting and memorable beauty, worth the visit but with outstanding wines.
