Over the last few years the Canena family’s Quinta da Pigarça has stealthily become Alentejo’s largest producer of talha wine. Currently making over 100,000 liters (133,000 bottles) in 150 talha. Their oldest talha is from 1655, but most are from the classic 1800s era. Ranging in size from 600, 1100, 1300 and 1500 liters, Pigarça also has the largest talha on earth – an extraordinary whopper at 8000 liters! 

Winemaker Joao Canena completed his first harvest in 1997, readily admitting he didn’t initially like wine very much. Now he probably makes more clay fermented wine than anyone on earth. Like others of his generation, he carries on a deep family tradition following on from his father, who made talha wine at Herdade do Rocim’s old adega in the 1970s and his grandfather, going way back into the 1930s, making talha wine at Casa Field in what is now Cuba’s municipal museum.

Previously the quinta’s focus was high volume, conventionally made wine that had topped out around one million liters. But inspired by talha wine’s rising star, the family has returned to its roots and is increasingly focused on producing large volumes of high quality talha wine. 

Although trained in modern winemaking techniques, Joao makes it clear that traditional practices passed down through his family were equally important, ‘I was born watching and helping my grandfather and father to produce talha wine and at that time I fell in love with the natural process of turning grapes into wine.’ The oral traditions passed down through this generational continuity have proved essential in mastering talha technology. Pigarça’s talhas, for example, are pes lined with a mix of pitch and beeswax, applied by the family, when needed, according to their own time-tested recipes that reach back into the 19th century.

Of the 100,000 liters made in talha, Quinta da Pigarça bottles about 50-60,000 liters and Canena around 15,000. All of their brands are certified Vinhos de Talha DOC, with the rest of the wine sold off in bulk. As per DOC certification, wines are taken off their mother between December and February. From that point wines are either bottled, or moved to cleaned talha, or into special clay barrels for further maturation. Pigarça owns a unique collection of these barrique shaped clay pots inherited from an earlier generation making talha wine in the 19th century.  

I first saw photos of these clay barrels at Amphora Day 2018. It was a stunning revelation. Beautiful in their own right, these purposefully designed and skillfully executed terracotta containers proved that clay maturation was a local practice in the past. This not only suggests that not all talha wine was intended to be drunk up in the first year, but also that winemakers were actively choosing to mature in small format clay containers instead of larger talha. These smaller clay barrels would oxidize the wines faster, resulting in fuller, more polished textures and softer tannins. Of course, another highly significant point is that the choice of a barrel shape and size - and purposefully made of clay - suggests an early clear preference for terracotta conditioning over wood.

Pigarça use clay barrels in both talha and conventional wine making. Some of their ‘modern style’ whites and reds are fermented in clay barrels (without pes), replacing oak barrel fermentation and maturation practices. Similarly, some of their talha fermented reds are also aged in clay barrels, somewhat akin to Herdade do Rocim’s ‘clay aged’ wine matured in small clay jugs. 

The quinta’s vineyard holdings total 25 hectares, with vines between four and forty years old. A quarter of this is in whites: Antao vaz, Roupeiro, Arinto, Perrum, Diegalves, Rabo de Ovelha, with the rest in reds: Trincadeira, Aragones, Tinta Grossa, Touriga Nacional, Moreto, Alfrocheiro, Alicante Bouchet.

Supplementary fruit comes from other small vineyards they own near Cuba and Vidigueira, all within 10km of the quinta. Many of these are traditional, mixed variety, field blends, including an impressive two hectares of 80+ year old vines planted on their own roots. They also buy grapes from old upland vines in the Vila Alva region. 

Quinta da Pigarça is very much a traditional, self contained, working farm, not purely focused on just growing grapes and making wine. Historically, their main business has been olive oil supported by other farming activities, including raising black Iberian pigs (manufacturing their own sausage and dry ham), touro de lide (Spanish fighting bulls), wild boars and game birds. The quinta also contains agro tourism apartments and has a large restaurant on site, renowned locally for its traditional, home cooked recipes supplied from the farm. 

Recently the family purchased an old adega inside the town of Cuba. This will become the new home of Adega do Canena, also functioning as a traditional urban taberna with an additional greatly enlarged restaurant area as well. Plans are afoot to extend and shift Quinta da Pigarça’s talha production into a newly designed winery. 

Joao Canena gravitated back into talha wine because of the ‘uniqueness of producing a natural wine like the Romans, without [modern] technologies they were able to do [without] 2000 years ago.’ His aim is to continue producing ‘quality wines, innovative and as natural as possible.’

As large as Pigarça and Canena are now, it's clear they have even bigger plans for the future.

Canena and Quinta da Pigarca Wines

Canena Brancos

Canena Vinhas Velhas Branco 2022 

Canena Roupeiro 2020 

Canena Branco 2020 

Quinta da Pigarça Branco 2018 

Canena Tintos

Canena Tinto 2022 

Canena Tinto 2020 

Quinta da Pigarça Tinto 2018 

Canena Tinto 2017 

Canena Palhete

Canena Palhete 2022 

Other stylistic experiments

Experimental Sparkling wine made in talha

No doubt a first for talha, but there is precedent with one Champagne producer using amphora as part of its processing. This displayed very fine bubbles and a degree of finesse, suggesting excellent potential. The quality of bubbles and mousse was especially good.