Our 13th harvest at Cortes de Cima started on the 25th August, and ended more than 6 weeks later on October 9th. A total of 938 tones of grapes were harvested, a reduction of 18% from 2007. The harvest workforce peaked at 70, 2/3 women and 1/3 men from the local villages.
Breakdown by [...]

A brief mid September update and some new vineyard photos.
As you can see in the photos, our vines are still in a good healthy state, with their working canopy helping the grapes to finish the most important stage of the ripening process, the phenolic maturity, or development of the grape flavor, color, aroma and [...]

We took some videos in the vineyard this morning, and wanted to share them with you. The rest are uploaded here at YouTube.

The 2008 growing season has been an unusual year for the Alentejo.
The cold, wet winter weather, continued throughout the spring months, only petering out with the arrival of the summer in June. Budbreak arrived late, at the end of March. Inclement weather resulted in uneven pollination, fewer bunches, and smaller berries, especially in Aragonez and [...]

Vintage is here! Amazing that it has already been a year since the last, but here we are, ready and waiting for the onslaught of grapes! There is a buzz of activity in the vineyards and winery as we prepare for picking, crushing, fermenting, pressing, tasting, sampling, measuring, and all the many and varied jobs [...]

Since our arrival at Cortes de Cima in 1988, we have converted arable land to forest through the planting of 46 hectares of mixed holm oak, cork oak , and pine in the foothills surrounding our water reservoir. We project planting another 20 hectares of cork forest during the next year. That translates into [...]