This is your chance to taste the 150-year-old legacy that shaped the Douro valley, courtesy of top estates Quinta do Vale Meão, Quinta do Vesuvio and Casa Ferreirinha. All three are the legacy of the Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, whose extraordinary story is every bit as remarkable as these wines.
Order by midday, Friday 23rd October
Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira was born in 1811 into a family of Douro winegrowers. Widowed at just 33, she took control of the family business in an era when commerce, property and the Port trade were overwhelmingly dominated by men. Far from simply preserving what she had inherited, she transformed it.
Known affectionately throughout the Douro as ‘Ferreirinha’, Dona Antónia proved to be a formidable entrepreneur and an extraordinarily sharp judge of vineyards. She acquired and developed properties across the valley, eventually becoming the Douro’s largest landowner and one of Portugal’s wealthiest people. But her rise coincided with catastrophe. First oidium and then phylloxera devastated the Douro’s vineyards during the 19th century, threatening the livelihoods of entire communities.
Rather than sell up and move out of the industry, Dona Antónia stepped up. She began experimenting with ways of restoring vineyards, buying and improving land and providing employment and support to the people whose whole lives depended upon the region. Her philanthropy, including support for hospitals, schools and local families, made her a celebrated figure far beyond the wine trade.
Her ambition is perhaps best illustrated by the winery Quinta do Vale Meão. In 1877, already in her sixties, she purchased a vast, remote tract of land in the wild eastern reaches of the Douro Superior and set about turning it into a great vineyard estate. It was her final great viticultural project and remains in the hands of her descendants today.
But her legacy stretches across the Douro. Quinta do Vesuvio was another of her great properties, which she developed and expanded, while Casa Ferreirinha grew directly from the Ferreira family wine business she had built, continued by her heirs after her death in 1896 and carrying the affectionate name by which she herself had been known.
More than a century later, these three names provide three different windows onto the same life. To celebrate Dona Antónia’s legacy it is a great pleasure to offer Wine Society members the excellent 2023 vintage releases from all three of these properties. The pedigree of these estates is hard to argue, and they sit at the forefront of Douro fine wine today.
Together, these three wines offer a rare opportunity to taste the living legacy of one remarkable woman and the Douro she helped to shape.
