Quinta do Vesuvio

Supplier/Importer: 

Region: Portugal

Appellation: Porto

The sense of place

“The quinta of all quintas – one of the wonders of the world”

At Vesúvio, far up in the Douro Superior, the work of man and the work of nature achieve a perfect and enduring harmony. More than anywhere else in the Douro it has a haunting and enchanting beauty; when you leave it, you take with you a sense of the place that does not fade with time.

The property and the landscape that surrounds it have stood hand in hand since the early nineteenth-century. The Viscount of Villa Maior called it one of the “most marvelous transformations that the ingenuity of man can conceive”.

Mention of the name Quinta do Vesúvio, for all those who have seen her, conjures up an austere and primitive beauty. She stands alone in terms of remoteness and sheer grandeur, a witness to and a protagonist in the history of one of the world’s greatest wine regions.

Within her boundaries, Vesúvio holds seven hills and thirty-one valleys. On the summit of each hill stands a ruined old lookout post, which once guarded the property. The tallest lookout is called the Raio de Luz, The Ray of Light. From here you can survey the full 360º aspect of Vesúvio’s vineyards.

Vesúvio’s story is one of obsession. It was the single-minded devotion of two Douro visionaries that first carved out her seat as one of the Douro’s and Portugal’s national treasures. These two were António Bernardo Ferreira I and his daughter-in-law Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira.

After passing through the expert care of the Briti Cunha family, Vesúvio was acquired by the Symington family, who became the Quinta’s guardians in 1989.

Over all those who have been there Vesúvio casts her spell. This is one of the last places in the world where human feet tread the grapes picked during the day in the cool of the night, accompanied by music and dancing. It is a hauntingly beautiful thing to witness.