Cortes de Cima

We are a family owned and operated farm and winery in Alentejo, Portugal. Our farm in Vidigueira is home to olive groves, traditional cork forests, grazing land for our animals and of course our vineyards, as well as the winery, offices and the family home. We have a second vineyard close to the Atlantic Ocean near Vila Nova de Milfontes as well which is strongly influenced by its proximity to the ocean. We embarked on our journey towards organic farming in 2019, and gained the certification in 2023. We follow the principles of regenerative farming, applying low to no-till soil management, encouraging spontaneous plant growth and sowing cover crops where necessary. We make our own compost with the leftover solids from the winemaking process, manure and wood cuttings, which we then return to our vines once transformed. Since 2023 we have reintroduced animals back into our farming system, and now have a flock of sheep, 11 cows, 5 donkeys, chickens, geese and ducks that play a critical role for us by grazing the vineyards during the forming winter season, naturally fertilising the soil and controlling grass growth, as well as bringing an important balancing role to the ecosystem, by increasing biodiversity and hence decreasing pest pressure. Since 2022 we have been experimenting with and applying biodynamic practices in our farm, primarily through 500 and 501 preparations. Since the second-generation took over the management of the farm in 2020, we have drastically reduced our vineyard area from 240 to 100ha, based on a series of in-depth soil studies undertaken with expert Pedro Parra, in order to focus on our best and most sustainable terroirs. The rest of the land is being repurposed for the planting of native forrest and rotational grazing land for our animals. Since late 2019 we have been working together with pruning consultant Marco Simonit to train our team and apply respectful site-specific pruning techniques in our vineyards. In the cellar our main goal is to preserve and highlight the vitality and quality of the fruit we grow, while maintaining purity of site. To achieve that such we use a low-fi, minimal intervention approach. The grapes are hand-harvested during the cool of night, in order to keep the freshness of the fruit, and protect our team from the warm daytime temperatures. In the cellar the fruit is carefully hand sorted, and transferred into the fermentation vats via gravity only. All fermentations are spontaneous. As we strive to make elegant and fresh wines from a warm place, we keep extraction during maceration time to a minimum. All our reds are pressed via a basket press, again for the sake of careful extraction. We work with stainless steel tanks, larger oak, smaller oak, local clay amphora (Talhas), cement tanks, ceramic jars and glass jars for fermentation and ageing of our wines. We keep the use of SO2 to a minimum during the winemaking process. We often prefer longer ageing in the cellar (two winters) to naturally stabilise our wines before bottling.