Bem Vindo a Cortes de Cima, a family owned and run vineyard and winery located in Alentejo, Southern Portugal. We strive to capture the abundant Alentejan sunshine in the vineyard, where we start making our wines. Our work is finished off in the winery, where the grapes are carefully handled to preserve the concentrated color, aroma and fruit flavor of the ripe Alentejan grapes.
We aim to use our website, blog, to tell you about what is going on in the vineyards and the winery from the people who actually work here on a daily basis. We would love for you to leave us a comment, to let us know what you think about our wines and our olive oil, use it as a visitors guestbook if you have visited us, or just to say Ola.
Posted by Carrie
on Sunday February 7th, 2010 at 21:00
In 1963 Hans left his home in Denmark to become asst. engineer at United Plantations, a Danish tropical plantation company in Malaysia. The oil palm and coconut plantation where he was to be stationed was surrounded by dense tropical jungle and only accessible by riverboat or by air, making flying a necessity, not a hobby. The company was founded in 1905 and the flying tradition dates back to pre-WW2, when many of the mostly Danish staff were pilots and had their own aircraft.
After a short time, Hans was offered by one of his superiors to ‘have a go’ with his own aircraft, an Auster. After a few runs up and down the grass airstrip, Hans got the nerve up to try to takeoff on his own without an instructor, and that was how he started his flying days! During the next 21 years in Malaysia he flew/ owned a Chipmunk, Super Cub, Beachcraft and a Piper Cherokee 235 and logged over 3000 flying hours over tropical jungle and Malaysian plantations.
When we left Malaysia in 1984, Hans changed his airplane out with a sailing boat which we used to travel around Europe looking for a new home. After settling at Cortes de Cima and planting our vineyards, Hans got busy on bulldozing a runway and……you guessed it!…. he bought himself an aircraft! As the first runway (just 50m from our front door) was short, he settled for …
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Category: Around & About, General • Comments: 0
Posted by Carrie
on Sunday February 7th, 2010 at 20:02
In the vineyard the long winter task of pruning is soon coming to an end, while the days get longer and the sun gains in strength, the long, wet cold winter begins to peter out. Early morning frost has been a common phenomena this January, freezing the fingertips of the women pruning in the vineyard. On the way to Vidigueira, the roadside almond trees have now blossomed, heralding budbreak in the vineyard only some short weeks away in early March. The vineyard workers need to step up their tempo, none to soon to finish the long task of pruning!
Not in the past 30 years have we received so much rain as has fallen in December and January (645mm). Since October an abundant 890 mm of rainfall has fallen, twice the annual average of 450mm! Portugal is not alone in having experienced extreme weather this winter, witness the November floods in the UK. Climate change predictions warn of drier summers and wetter winters, with more intense rainfall the likely consequences. Is this climate change at play? Can we expect a hot, dry summer? Well, if so, at least we now have sufficient water resources for this year to help our vines through the long summer months.
(”Warmer temperatures allow the atmosphere to hold more water vapor - 6 per cent more for every 1ºC increase- and give it …
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Category: General, Vineyard • Comments: 0
(During Carrie and Hans Jorgensen’s recent passage through Oporto, I had the opportunity, after a pleasant dinner at the local restauranta Casa Aleixo, to exchange a few words with Hans about the wines of Cortes de Cima. It’s based on this brief conversation that I wrote these texts, divided into 3 Blog posts, with short notes about the wines of Cortes de Cima which are currently available on the market, and which, a few days later, I tried with Hamilton (winemaker at Cortes de Cima). Read the first part here. )
Part 2 -
From the very first harvest Cortes de Cima started producing single varieties, due to the fact that the owner, was a fan of New World viticulture and winemaking theories. “In these wines, I am trying to respect the characteristics of each variety, and everyone here is working to achieve this goal, whether it is in the vineyard, or the winery” states Hans Jorgensen.
Trincadeira is a red varietal always rich in fruit, a characteristic of this variety, and sensitive to too much wood influence from barrel ageing. Another marked quality is it’s vegetative characteristic. This red wine always shows good body, as the grapes are picked well ripened, but still maintains the balance and complexity of the variety.
In order to produce an Aragonez varietal, one must take care to harvest the fruit at just …
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Category: Awards/Reviews, General, Winemaking • Comments: 1
Posted by Carrie
on Tuesday January 19th, 2010 at 20:35
Anne Christine Knudsen, was this year’s top graduate from the Copenhagen Hotel & Restaurantskolen, and won herself a trip to Portugal, sponsored by ViniPortugal, with other sommelier graduates from Scandinavia. At the end of the trip, we invited her to visit Cortes de Cima. If you understand Danish, you can read an excerpt from her report, about her visit to Cortes de Cima!
“Vi ankom til Cortes de Cima sent om aftenen hvor Hans og sønnen tog imod mig. Blev vist ind på gæsteværelset og fik lige en kort indsigt i, hvad der skulle komme til at ske. Mandag den 2. November Var oppe kl. 8.00 og så var der morgenmad på terassen☺ Vejret var fantastisk og da det var lyst kunne man ikke andet and være beæret over at være sådan et sted, først var der lidt oliven træer og så kiggede man ellers bare ud over vinmarkerne.
Kl. 9.00 var jeg så i vineriet laboratorium hvor jeg skulle se hvad der foregik. Her var der et team på 4: Hamiltion som arbejder på blendende og er Hans højre hånd, hvad det angår, Hugo, Helena og Christina som alle arbejdere med analyser mm. Christina startede med at vise mig rundt i vineriet, hvor alt var i gang med lagring i tanke og på fade. Et stort imponerende vineri.
Bagefter fik jeg en lille opgave, hvor jeg skulle prøve at “genskabe” et blend. Dvs. jeg fik en rød Chamine 2008, og …
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Category: General, Visitors • Comments: 0
Posted by Carrie
on Monday January 18th, 2010 at 13:22
Category: General, Vineyard • Comments: 1
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