Quinta da Romaneira Cotas, Douro, Douro & Nordportugal, Portugal

Wine and vineyards

The vineyard
Quinta da Romaneira is one of the great historic Port Wine Quintas of the Douro.

The property is vast, one of the three or four largest in the region, with more than two kilometers of river frontage on the Douro river.

The greatest wines in the Douro are made from grapes grown in sight either of the Douro itself or of its tributaries: all of Romaneira’s red grapes overlook the Douro itself.

The vineyard has over 85 hectares planted, principally with the noble Douro grape varieties of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinto Cao and Tinta Roriz, but also a small proportion of white grapes (Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and Viosinho), and a few experimental hectares of “exotic” grape varieties such as Syrah and Petit Verdot, which are beginning to yield very exciting results for red wine.

The winery
Although technology on its own cannot make a great wine, even a good team with a great terroir can find life difficult without the right tools. We decided in 2005 to construct a new winery at Romaneira.

For Christian Seely and Antonio Agrellos this was a long dreamed of opportunity to construct the ideal Douro Valley winery, starting from scratch. Most wineries in the Douro are far from ideal, dating back to their 18th or even 17th century origins. This makes them very picturesque, but not usually very practical. At Romaneira we were able to dig a large hole in the ground and then build the winery we wanted to make, two thirds underground (aesthetically very pleasing but also very practical for storage of wines in cool stable conditions).

Our lagares are in stainless steel, which means that as well as all the traditional advantages of foot treading grapes for Port wine, we also benefit from the technical ability to heat and cool them.

Our vatroom consists of stainless steel temperature controlled conical vats, which give us the flexibility we need to be able to express fully the personality of the vineyard of Romaneira.