Herdade do Esporão is an old, old place, but with a more recent history ever full of new ideas. Known for their fresher, fruitier, consumer-friendly wine styles delivered through contemporary branding and labeling, Esporão helped establish Alentejo as an important producer of consistently clean, ripe wine at bargain prices both within Portugal and abroad. Many credit Esporão with leading the vanguard of producers that brought ‘modern’ large scale, technologically driven wine production and international wine styles to Alentejo in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

Driving much of this innovation was (now retired) Australian winemaker David Baverstock, who actively championed many of the standardized aspects of ‘New World’ styling: French grapes, new oak barrels, stainless steel tanks, temperature controlled fermentation, inoculated yeast, etc…all married back into Alentejo’s local grapes and growing conditions. In a sense, recreating Alentejo as Europe’s answer to Australia’s Barossa Valley.

One of the most important aspects of Baverstock’s innovative work was his systematic development of 100% varietal wines from Portuguese grapes. Previously these had been anonymous components of traditional blends, the parts generally being considered less important than the whole. The positive aspect of deconstructing these blends back into their individual components was a new understanding of each grape’s strong and weak points. This in turn, allows each to either stand on its own as a single varietal or be reassembled in new ways on the basis of newly discovered knowledge. In some ways, it took an outsider like Baverstock to help rediscover what made Alentejo tick.

Over the last decade or so Esporão, David Baverstock, Sandra Alves (who followed his retirement), and current winemaker, Joao Ramos, have undergone a sea change of sorts, following a steady evolution away from ‘internationalist’ styling, back toward Alentejo’s traditional wine production and the smaller, more intimate, locally oriented culture that surrounds it. 

Their commitment to talha is just one example. Esporão have refocused their direction towards promoting a more holistic approach to sustainability on a broad front. Not just committing to Alentejo’s environment, but also its traditions, history, culture and the economic viability of its people. Their published manifesto takes a page right out of Slow Food’s Slow Wine movement: ‘To be a family company that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, capable of providing unique products and experiences that improve people’s lives.’

This philosophy is universally applied to what has become a very large operation covering 700 hectares of vineyards, olive groves and cork trees. All are farmed under organic methods and integrated production, working forty grape varieties and four types of olives. Much care has been taken to encourage ever more biodiversity through the establishment of a small lake and marsh. All of this is actively promoted through their wine tourism program based within the winery, restaurant and tasting room complex.

One unusual aspect is a tip towards ancient history. In the midst of planting vineyards in 1996 at nearby newly acquired Herdade dos Perdigões, they discovered a 4000-6000-year-old Neolithic village, megaliths and ceremonial necropolis, covering 16 hectares. Esporão offered ongoing financial support for archeological excavations, and it has since been declared a National Monument, with artifacts housed in Herdade do Esporão’s original 13th century defensive tower, Perdigões Archeological Complex Museum.

All of which leads back to Esporão’s talha wine production. 

In a sense, it is a logical and natural  progression from both Esporão and Baverstock’s technological development from stainless steel and oak barrels, through to fermentation in massive concrete tulip-shaped tanks which show Portuguese grapes in a more neutral light, and onward into the more recent revival of clay pot technologies that are both historically and materially more specific to Alentejo. Old talha simply became the next frontier to conquer.

All Herdade do Esporão’s talha wines follow the Vinho de Talha DOC guidelines and are certified. What is most interesting about their production is their choice of grapes and vineyards.

Both their white and red wines are non-traditional in being single varieties, Roupeiro and Moreto, and from the (sometimes super) hot Granja-Amareleja sub-region. Much more unusual - indeed extremely rare - is that grapes are from ‘ungrafted’ vines grown on sandy soil (many speculate that ungrafted vines produce purer characters). Esporão’s third talha wine is a traditional field blend of ‘old vine’ red grapes from the cooler Portalegre region to the north.

All three wines are as distinct from one another as they are from other producers’ Vinho de Talha DOC wine, but at the same time they are clearly within the bounds of that tradition. Where Esporão puts its mark on the wines is the seriousness of their intent in producing the complexity and refinement expected from their highest quality conventionally made wines.

Herdade do Esporão Wines

White Wines

Esporão Roupeiro 2019 

Esporão Roupeiro 2018 

Red Wines

Esporão Moreto 2020 

Esporão Moreto 2019 

Esporão Vinho de Talha Vinhas Velhas 2015