Vinhos Cortém

Founded in 2004 by Christopher Price, an English film sound engineer and his wife Helga Wagner a german sound editor, Vinhos Cortém Is a small (4.5 hectares) organic winery set in the hills and valleys a few kilometers east of Caldas da Rainha. Although the agriculture in this area is now predominantly fruit growing, 70 years ago only vines were cultivated and winemaking was the main activity as the many old wineries and presses bear witness.

The idea to make wine started as a small personal project with one field but has grown now to a full-time job for us both and we produce about 15000 bottles a year. Our love of wine has been the driving force and although we had no formal training in winemaking we have taken part in many seminars, talked with winemakers, read books searched the internet, as well as doing the work at every stage of the process including planting, pruning, care of the vines, and the winemaking. So in this way we have learnt the basics of this art, but there is still a long way to go.

Our aim is to make wines which have their own special flavour and quality, and to accomplish this we think that the terroir of Cortém with its cool and temperate Atlantic climate will produce wines where one can, above all, taste the grape variety and enjoy the special flavour of Cortém.

Situated in the Estramadura  (Lisboa Wines) in the DOC Obidos region, the vineyards are set in Hilly country near to Caldas da Rainha, The climate is temperate to cool, with a strong maritime influence and summer temperatures seldom above 30 degrees. Late harvests lead to well-structured wines with natural acidity but sometimes high alcohol content. Our vines were planted between 2000 and 2005 on cleared fields previously unused for 30 years and have been grown organically from the beginning leading to full certification in 2010. Grapes and wines of this vintage and beyond are organically certified.

Cortém has a very distinctive microclimate which has prompted some people to say that this is not the best place to make red wine. What they mean is that it is not hot enough. But there again the taste of our wines tell a different story. In this area, our maritime climate is much cooler and has an increased rainfall each year making irrigation unnecessary. At night there are often cold sea breezes and fog, even in the summer months.  Vines enjoy this cool night air as a contrast to the heat of the day. Our harvest is late compared with the southern part of Portugal and we may have to wait till the middle of October for the last grapes to ripen. At this time the weather can bring rain which if it persists can ruin the grapes, but we have to wait. We harvest each lot according to ripeness, The first to come in is the Jean and the Pinot  Noir and the last is the Syrah, taking us well into the second week in October.

The vineyards are situated in a protected valley where the predominant agriculture now is fruit growing. There are no public roads or houses in the valley which makes for a very clean and tranquil environment. Next to the valley there are several sq Km of forest and a large population of wild pig which come down to the vineyards at night! The soil is predominantly alluvial sandy clay but varies from field to field as the geology of the area.

Vines

We have planted many different grape varieties in Cortém allowing us to be able to produce wines with very different flavours from them.

• The traditional Portuguese red varieties we have are, Jaen, Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Aragonez and Tinto Cao;
• The more international red varieties being, Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc, Tannat, Pinot Noir, Petite Syrah, Carmenere.
• White varieties: Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier.

Our vineyards were layed out and planted in Cortém in fields not used for 30 years. We selected and planted the fifteen different grape varieties now growing in the vineyards using them for the blends we make. The grapes are fully certified organic from 2010. All the work is done by us and a small team of local people. We don't employ a winemaker and are learning the art of winemaking ourselves through hands on experience. It seems that the terroir of Cortém is helping us to make honest and tasteful wines as the various awards and customer enthusiasm shows.

The wines are made traditionally with hand picked grapes, destemming, crushing and 2 days of cold maceration until fermentation starts . Fermentation is for 2-3 weeks in open tubs of 1000 litre each, with partial covering to exclude air and manual stirring twice a day, waiting until all fermentation has ceased. The new wine is racked well mixed with air and the pressing its done in a tradiional manual basket press .

The wine is held for 2 years in stainless steel tanks, racked several times and blended before certification by the our Lisbon Wines Commission and bottling. Only SO2 solution is used to stabilise the wine and the reds are not filtered.  Some wines stay in the tanks for up to 3 years before bottling depending on the blend and grape variety. Our policy is not to use oak additives or oak barrels in the ageing process so our wines just taste of the grapes used and the influence of our Cortém terroir.