The ancient Douro Valley

Since its occupation, which dates back to pre-historic times, the Douro Valley displays a variety of evidences leftover from the people which inhabited it. The vine-growing culture has been developed in this area since roman times. The vineyards landscape is a testament to vine-growing methods from different historic times.

Originally, it was a desert landscape of cragged cliffs, where schist and granite prevailed, covered by thickets and bushes typical of a climate somewhere between the atlantic and the mediterranic, which grows more dry as you move inland.

The evolution of the Douro wines

Throughout three centuries, techniques were created to perfect and improve the soil, allowing the vineyards to grow in hostile conditions, on steep and rocky hills, through the construction of terraces supported by long schist walls that also help to avoid erosion.

The landscape was moulded in an unmistakable way and transformed in thousand of miles of vineyards.
 
The huge plantations of parallel trellises, be it in terraces and horizontal landings, in standing vineyards, or, as it is common these days, a mixture of both tecniques, form majestic geometric tapestries. Its stratification in huge steps that split the mountains, combines with the silence and flatness of a river transformed in a series of lakes by the dams built along its course.

Making the wine

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