This week’s Wine Wednesday post is all about Quinta Monte São Sebastião from the Douro Valley. The quinta’s history started in 1950. They have 4 hectares devoted to wine and three to olive growing near the town of Murca out of a property of 50 hectares. Pinhao is the largest city near the winery. We arrived there after a long day and had perhaps the best meal of the week that I was in the Douro Valley. The fantastic homemade meal was a moment to also try their wines with food.

They also have guest rooms where one can stay while visiting the Douro. The quinta is located in the Cimo Corgo Sub-region, that runs  from the junction of the Corgo river
and the Temilobos stream to Cachão da Valeira. They grow mostly only indigenous varieties such as white grapes Códegado Larinho, Gouveio and Rabigato and red varieties Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Barroca and Tinta Roriz. The white varieties grow on granite at an average altitude of 500 meters in order to preserve their natural freshness, while the red grapes are grown at lower altitudes.

Unlike most of the other farms we visited in the Douro, they also make sparkling wine such as the one seen in the picture above. They make three types of these wines and are doing quite well with it, we were told. This was not at all typical of the area. Pedro Guedes is their winemaker who we nicknamed winegyver because he apparently was quite inventive with his use of random tools to make fermentation tanks and the like such as a washing machine drum and a fish tank tube…

I also really liked their white wine, which was a blend of Rabigato, Gouveio and Codegado Larinho. It was an easy drinking wine with bright acidity. Apparently that comes from the Rabigato while the Codegado grape brings aromatics.

They also made a red that was interesting using Tinta Amarela, Tinta Barocca, Tinta Roriz and Touriga Nacional. It went through a cold soak for 48 hours. It was ripe and full bodied with juicy, silky tannins.

I thought the owner and his father were truly lovely and welcoming. We didn’t get too spend much time visiting the winery but it’s definitely a place to watch and somewhere I would return if and when I get back to the Douro valley.