Quinta Dos Roques

QUINTA DOS ROQUES and its co-owned winery, Quinta das Maias, lead a revolution with high-quality wines and innovation in producing the first group of seriously regarded Portuguese varietals that have set the standard for all the rest of the producers and greatly reduced the reliance on often ill-matched field blends.

As a result of this innovation, Roques’ founder and owner Manuel Oliveira was named ”Producer of the Year” in 1996 by the foremost Portuguese national wine magazine. The 1996 Touriga Nacional from Roques was acclaimed one of the ten best wines of the twentieth century by The Quarterly Review of Wines.  Recently, the 2003 vintage received a gold medal from Decanter magazine and the 2005 three gold medals/trophies in the 2007 International Wine Challenge in London, rated the best Portuguese red wine.

Located at Abrunhosa do Mato (between Nelas and Mangualade), Quinta dos Roques’ 100 acres of winery and vineyards spread out in 12 plots over the 1400-foot elevation of the granitic hills at this center of the Dão wine region.The grapes pick up a hint of the aroma and flavor of the surrounding pine forests and some eucalyptus trees. The vines age from 5 to 30 years with the oldest vines of several varietals located in the premiere 7.5 acre Peachtree Vineyard, which are used for reserve and garrafeira bottlings. (Uniquely, these varietals ripen at the same time in this “field-blend” vineyard, while being as much as two weeks apart in the vineyards with separate varietal plots.)

About 75% of the vineyards are devoted to red grape varietals, dominated by Touriga Nacional (40%), followed by Roriz (Tempranillo), Alfrocheiro, Jaen (Tinta Mencia), Tinto Cão and Tinta Pinheira. The remaining 25% are white varietals, where the Encruzado prevails (40%), followed by Malvasia Fina, Bical and Cercial. As you walk through the vineyards, each plot of varietals is readily identified by its characteristics – Touriga Nacional shows a relatively wild growth with shoots coming out at all angles; Jaen’s small leaves have a light-green hue; and Tinta Cão has larger dark green leaves.

Total wine production from the Roques vineyards averages 150,000 liters, which is bottled under Quinta dos Roques or Quinta do Correio labels. The Roques labels are devoted to the best selections of each year of harvest, with oak ageing of the red wines. The Correio labels, perforated around the edges like an oversize postage stamp, reflect the sense of fun in naming it after a former old posting (correio) station in the vineyard, and in producing a wine that is ready to drink in its fresh youth without ageing in oak.

The winemakers practice green pruning, and separating the grapes from the different plots of vines to maximize production quality. The vineyards are managed to nearly organic standards, qualifying as “sustainable agriculture” through monitoring pests to a certain tolerance, resulting in only a rare use insecticides. While limiting the quantity of production, these factors insure the high quality of the Roques’ wines.