Vines planted on sloped hills !!! and other Pinhão, Portugal Local Custom Tips

When I'm visiting the Douro Valley and the vineyards that produce grapes for the famous Port Wine, I always get amazed about the enormous difficulty that it had had been planting vines on those sloped hills !!!

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picture of Quinta do Noval, near Pinhão.

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During the pre-phylloxera period, the vineyards were planted along valeiras, curved strips of land that ran parallel to the lay of the land on the hillsides and about 7 to 8 palmos wide (between 1m54 and 1m76) at their base.

An inward sloping schist stone wall was banked against the base of each valeira, to form a terrace 5-6 palmos (between 1m10 and 1m32) wide at the top.

Planting density was low as each valeira was customarily planted with only one or two rows of vines.

When he wanted to plant a vine, the farmer would remove and root a shoot from a mature vine the year before

Bibliography: Port Wine by François Guichard, Gaspar Martins Pereira, David Guimaraens, Fernando Peixoto, Alberto Ribeiro de Almeida, Teresa Silva Lopes, George Sandeman, Manuel Carvalho. - Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto.

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Quinta do Silval is located 6 Km north Pinhão, driving towards Alijó.

The estate, owned by the Magalhães family, has an Rural Wine Hotel open for guests.

Members of the Magalhães family are generally around during the weekends and they will be pleased to provide guests with details on their wines.

Quinta do Silval produces Douro Reds branded Dorna Velha and Port Wines branded Magalhães.

List of Douro Reds:
» Dorna Velha, Douro DOC 2000
» Dorna Velha, Tinta Roriz 2003
» Dorna Velha, Tinta Baroca 2003
» Dorna Velha, Colheita Seleccionada 2003
» Dorna Velha, Reserva 2000

List of Port Wines:
» Magalhães, LBV 1999
» Magalhães, Vintage 2000

Magalhães Vintage Port 2000 got a 5***** star on Decanter Magazine December 2003.

So far Quinta do Silval has declared a Magalhães Vintage Port in the years of 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004.

Besides Portugal, this company's wines are nowadays being sold in various markets such us Brazil, Switzerland, Denmark, England, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, USA, Canada, Dutch Polynesia. Cape Verde Islands, Angola and soon in Norway as well.

Under vine, In total, Quinta do Silval owns 60 hectares = about 148 acres.

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Phone: (+351) 254-730-060
Website: www.quintadosilval.com
Other Contact: info@quintadosilval.com

Silval Rural Wine Hotel, near Pinhão, has its walls covered with Schist, the local stone found in the Douro Valley.

This job, covering the hotel's exterior walls, was a very intensive labor: a single man was only able to built an half square metro (about 5.38 sq feet) per day.

This brand new Silval Rural Wine Hotel was built in late 2005 and is located 6 Km (about 3.7 miles) north Pinhão, driving towards Alijó.

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Phone: (+351) 254-730-060
Website: www.quintadosilval.com
Other Contact: info@quintadosilval.com

In December 2003 Decanter Magazine published a report on 40 Single Quinta Vintages tasted blinded.

Out of the 40 Single-Quinta Vintage Ports:
» 1 got 5***** stars - Excellent.
» 8 got 4**** stars - Very good to excellent.
» 27 got 3*** stars - Good to very good.
» 3 got 2** stars - Acceptable to Good.
» 1 got 1* star - Poor to adequate.

Magalhães Vintage Port 2000 is the only one that got a 5***** star classification.

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Phone: (+351) 254-730-060
Website: www.quintadosilval.com
Other Contact: info@quintadosilval.com