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Records show that production fell to just 12 pipes (6,600 liters) in 1867, but by the 1930s it had recovered to a modest 40,000 liters of wine a year. Carcavelos was demarcated in 1908
to take in the then villages of Oeiras, Parede, São Domingos de Rana, and the town of Carcavelos itself, all of which had substantial areas of vineyard. Now a DOC [DOP], the region has been enlarged to include the coastal strip between Paço de Arcos and the outskirts of the resort town of Estoril. In the meantime, however, large areas of vineyard have been lost to urban development, as Lisbon has expanded westward along the Tagus estuary. The heart of the region was around Sassoeiros, but since the 1950s, properties with bucolic-sounding names like Quinta de Bela Vista, Quinta das Rosas, and Quinta das Vinhas have been supplanted by housing estates. There is one urban area named Bairro Além das Vinhas (“Estate beside the Vines”), even though the vines are no more. Vines are now being planted on roundabouts as a nod to the wine region.
The civic saving of Carcavelos It is now hard to trace the true character of Carcavelos wine, since there wasn’t much in the way of consistency in the 20th century. A fleeting revival of the wine took place in the 1980s, when a new vineyard was planted at Quinta dos Pesos, at Caparide behind Estoril, but most of the vines were uprooted a decade or so later. Around the same time, one of the last of the traditional estates, Quinta do Barão, which once belonged to the Counts of Riba d’Ave, fell prey to urban development. That would have been the end for Carcavelos, but for the intervention of Oeiras town council in 1997. Joining forces with the Estação Agronómica Nacional, they restored the vineyard on Pombal’s old estate, and from 2001 they began producing wine again, marketing under the brand name Villa Oeiras. Not to be outdone, Cascais town council is also supporting a project in its patch, which includes the suburb of Carcavelos itself. There are currently 32ha (80 acres) of vineyard within the Carcavelos DOC, with 23ha (57 acres) on the Marquês do Pombal’s old estate. A modern winery (Adega do Casal da Manteiga) has been created from a former dairy (hence
68 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025
manteiga, meaning “butter”), with the cellars of the old palace used for aging the wines in cask and barrel. The property is open for guided tours on certain days of the week and can be reached easily by train from the center of Lisbon.
The mild Atlantic climate lends itself to the production of fortified wine. The coastline faces due south, and a series of shallow valleys offer natural shelter from the Atlantic westerlies that buffet the west-facing coast just around the corner from Cascais. Both red and white grapes may be used to make Carcavelos. The reds are Castelão and Preto Martinho, supplemented by Trincadeira and Amostrinha, alongside white grapes Boal Ratinho, Arinto, and Galego Dourado. Of these, Galego Dourado seems to be the most distinguished and is now being cultivated with considerable success for unfortified whites on the Alentejo coast to the south of Lisbon. The calcareous soils and maritime climate lend acidity, which is considered essential for the character and the aging of the wine. Picking now begins as early as mid- August to retain natural acidity, although Arinto and Ratinho are far from short of it. In the past, the grapes were
foot-trodden in lagar and fermented dry before being fortified with grape spirit up to at least 17.5% ABV. Residual sugar may not be more than 150g/l, with most of today’s wines registering RS levels of around 100g/l. According to António Maria de Oliveira Bello, who described Carcavelos toward the end of its heyday, the wine was produced in two styles: seco and meio seco. The former was apparently sold with a minimum of 18 years of age and the latter with 11. Both are described as aveluado—“velvety.”
Reborn and reinvented Carcavelos is currently reinventing itself and writing its own rules, with blended wines bottled at seven and 15 years of age (“Superior”), and sporadic single-harvest or colheita wines when quantity and quality permit. In future, when stocks permit, it is planned to bottle aged wines at 20 and 30 years, in parallel with Port and Madeira. There are now around 2,000 barrels in stock. The fortifying aguardente is 77% strength (akin to that used to fortify
Port), with producers preferring to age a portion of the spirit in wood for eight months before fortifying to make the wine smoother and more mellow from the outset. Some spirit originates from nearby Lourinhã. There are currently wines made entirely from white grapes, a blend of red and white, and (in the case of the Adega de Belém urban winery), a wine made from pure Castelão. I have to say that I didn’t find the latter very tipico (to use a Portuguese word), being more akin to a young Tawny Port. True Carcavelos has been described as being “between a Sherry and a Madeira” in style. On the basis of the wines tasted below, this is a fairly apt summary. In fact, it was not unknown for the wines at Quinta do Barão to be subject to some rudimentary estufagem (heating in the sun). Today’s Carcavelos must be aged in wood for a minimum of two years, though most producers are aging their wines in French and Portuguese oak barricas of varying sizes for considerably longer. It is felt that wines made from red grapes need longer in wood than those made from white grapes. Larger chestnut casks are also used. All producers are now obliged to have a conta corrente (stock account) with the local CVR, which issues seals of approval. Like Madeira with its acidic base, Carcavelos clearly needs age. Most of the wines below were tasted in Lisbon at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia in February 2024, in what must have been the first comparative tasting of Carcavelos for many a year. My thanks go to Jorg Lewerenz for inviting me, and to Rodolfo Tristão for leading this rather remarkable tasting. I have added more recent notes on the 7-year-old, 2014 Colheita and a 1997 Colheita from a tasting at the Villa Oeiras adega with winemaker Alexandre Lisboa. He is conscious of his pivotal role in restoring the region’s reputation: “We are aware of our heritage, and we are creating these wines for future generations.” Old bottles of traditional Carcavelos can still occasionally be found in specialist Lisbon wine shops, but look out for the new generation of wines from Quinta do Corrieira and Villa Oeiras, both of which represent the future of Carcavelos.
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