Young Winemakers of Portugal -Together Uphill

They are all independent and they have come together to make a stand for the wine that they love to make. Above all they are young and the latest group who shares an interest to integrate old tradition with a new fresh approach. They are all young winemakers and a talented group of young producers from Portugal who share some new ideas and cooperate costs. It defines a new generation of original new thinkers, presenting new elements on winemaking from the great heritage of Portugal. The large variety of grapes and styles can be confusing when it comes to portuguese wines,but it is also a key success factor and a positive biodiversity element. For each new experiment they bring a freshness to their projects with good quality to their cause.

Young wine makers of Portugal consists of Joao Cabral de Almeida - Chameleon;
Luis Patron - Vadio; already catching attentions and high points from the International wine commenters; Rita Marques and her - Concept , Diogo and Pedro Campilho Pinion - Hobby , Pedro Barbosa - Clip (pictured between Peter and Pinion Diogo Campilho.)
They all produce distinctive wines, and show a new way of differentiated and uninhibited winemaking. Learning from tradition and bringing new methods.The group covers almost all the regions in Portugal: Douro,Vinhos Verdes, Bairrada,Tejo, Lisboa, and Alentejo.

Young winemakers of Portugal understand their geographical terroir and they are all coming strong. They work properly with their widely differing altitudes and soils and grapes. They handle microclimates to produce their wines. It might be uphill for competition.They try out various regions of Portugal and strive to produce some of the best wine.They are adventurous enough to have some experience with winemaking in other parts of the world. they all have independent concepts and good graphic design of their labels. Together they share this one thing upon which they wholeheartedly like to do. And that is to make wine!
Thats why their motto is "Together uphill"

The Portuguese way
The balance of all good wine starts within the vineyard and in Portugal the true secret may be in the grapes. Portugal is one of the oldest wine countries of the world.Traditions of winemaking is an equal important part of their history as being an outgoing exploring nation back in the days.
Today Portugal has come to have a new unique position in the world on having their own heritage of grapes that can't be found elsewhere in the world.
On winemaking it is only natural for them to refer to their past and history of the portuguese way.
The coming generation of portuguese wine makers have both renewed their technique in aspects of facilities, brushing the dust of old traditions to bring new lights on Portugal wine. They have also adapted their production to an new era and are creating wines that no longer can be regarded as being too robust for the International palate of taste.

The Douro was for years associated primarily with Port wine production, but now produces just as much table wine as fortified wine.The ongoing development and improvements in production has led to an explosion of high quality wines in search of making the best practice. People have become aware of the tremendous potential and beauty that the Douro has to offer. In 2001, the upper part of the valley (Alto Douro) was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, in the category of cultural landscape. Just a reminder that winemaking started more than 4000 years ago.
The Douro valley is also officially the oldest legislated wine region in the world, drawn by local farmers in 1756 to protect borders and their unique geographical region for production of wine.

Portugal’s various regions increasingly delivers and show excellence on wines that are just perfectly made in body and range. It may be hard to grasp that a smaller nation like Portugal has more than 250.000 hectares of vineyard area, and is the 7th largest wine producer in the world, compared with the the US with 400.000 hectares.
The young winemakers of Portugal are starting to explore the world again and they bring some extraordinary wines with them. They are ambitious, personal and they set their goals high.
The elements of uniqueness and quality in their fresh wines proves that the attitude fits their attempts. Here is a promise of more to come with each harvest. It might be uphill for competition but who if not the portuguese would be able to beat Bordeaux to the punch on popularity? It has happened before, so it just might happen again. The magnificence of the Portuguese way is here to stay.

Dares to be different

At 29, Rita Ferreira Marques is already a dynamical winemaker.She has a natural curiosity for the world and she certainly dears to be different.
Rita ´s story started when she put her engineer studies aside and instead went to live in Vila Real, where she started her studies to be an oenologist. Now having her mind set on wine she started to learn more on winemaking and  it didn't take long for her to develop her own style and concept. Her ambition was to make sure that she could take care of her family's vineyards in the best possible way.

Her first winemaking experiments started in the harvest of 2003. Even before she completed her degree with honors, she started to travel around the world to learn with a hands-on approach about harvesting grapes and creating wines.
Douro, Bordeaux, California, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand has been some of her stops, where she worked with oenologists such as Denis Dubourdieu, Dirk Niepoort and Jorge Borges, Returning home, she issued her first red wine in 2005. But it was not until 2007 that she  surprised the portuguese wine scene by releasing what would become the new best Portuguese white wine, Conceito Branco. Next, many raised eyebrows followed while introducing a new red made from pure Bastardo grapes,a bright colored red wine from this previously abandoned grape variety that no one else regarded to have potential to reinvent.

The success has come with great interest from abroad. With her brand Conceito and theme of Contraste she started receiving comments from world wine critics and importers.
Rita designs food wines, with a notable purity and remarkable ageing potential. The Portuguese success did not slow down her globetrotting craving. In 2010 she spent 6 weeks in New Zealand to make a try for a Sauvignon Blanc to be released under the brand Conceito, a totally original move for Portuguese wine producers. At the same time, micro vinifications allows her to further explore her original Douro terroir and to create personal wines of both elegance and depth.