Small “Wine & Soul“ Challenging The Big Port Wine Houses

Small “Wine & Soul“ Challenging The Big Port Wine Houses

Share to Linkedin The Douro Valley in Portugal has changed. 30 years ago, it was all about port wines, all about big houses with internationally famous names. But in the 1990s, things started to change; a new generation of winemakers appeared. They made not only port wine but also excellent red and white dry (unfortified) Douro wines. Soon these wines were considered some of the best, maybe the best, in Portugal. In 2001, Sandra Tavares da Silva created the successful company Wine & Soul with her husband, Jorge Borges. "This was a good time to start", she says, "there were a lot of new projects happening." One reason for all the activity was that new rules, introduced in 1986, when Portugal became a member of the EU, made it easier for small producers to produce and to export their port wines. Sandra and Jorge make port, but it was never their primary focus. "We wanted to show that the Douro Valley can produce top quality dry red wine", says Sandra. "At the time, people only knew port wines." "We are both from wine families," explains Sandra, "Jorge is a fifth-generation winemaker in the Douro, and I am the fourth generation,