Artist Cláudia Cudell and her husband, Dr Jorge Tenreiro, have shared the same passion since they first met, to produce high-quality wines from the Portuguese Douro region. CLOSER spoke with them on a visit to Macau to introduce their award-winning Quinta do Cume wines.The couple’s goal has always been to produce high-quality wines, rather than high volume.
“There are already so many wines on the market, so we wanted to focus on quality, not so much on quantity, although we have had to grow, and now we have the capacity to expand to Asia”, she explains.
Provezende was chosen as the location for making their wine making dreams come true, because it gathers all the characteristics for producing excellent wines: rugged terrain, schist soil, an ideal level of sun exposure and the perfect altitude – 600 meters above sea level for white wines, while the red wine vines are grown a little lower down.
This “terroir”, including the soil, topography, and climate, gives Quinta do Cume wines their particular flavors and characteristics “and unparalleled oenological properties”.
“I think it is really a differentiated white wine, because of the acidity, minerality and, above all, the grape variety. We have this grape variety that is dominant in our wine, which is ‘Malvasia Fina’, which only ac- quires these characteristics when planted at altitude. That’s one of thereasons why we have such differentiated wines,” Cudell notes.
For the reds, the couple chose “the lowest vines in Provesende, where it is always about five to six degrees warmer than at the higher altitudes, allowing for a more concentrated, fruity pallet”.
The Quinta do Cume property is also surrounded by bush and native vegetation, which gives the wines a uniquely fresh characteristic. “In all our reds you can feel this freshness, that makes them very elegant and very suitable for this warm Macau climate,” the wine maker comments.
Quinta do Cume has its own wine cellar with modern technology, and talented winemaker, Frenchman Jean-Hugues-Gros. However, Cláudia stresses that you need more than a good winemaker to guarantee the quality of the wine.
“I think the winemaker really matters a lot, but what makes a good wine is good and healthy grapes,” she says.
The couple has a team of winegrowers permanently taking care of the soil and the vines, Cláudia explains.
“We are very careful about this, and our winegrowers and my husband, who, despite being a doctor, is also passionate about viticulture, have planted a herb called ‘serradela’, which we use instead of pesti-cides, to kill the fungi and weeds. This is a herb that grows and competes with the other vegetation, and then it holds the nitrogen contained in the root. So we have very little or almost no pesticides, and that leaves the grapes and the vines healthy”.
The couple started their wine production back in 1997, literally from scratch.
“We did everything from the roots, the cellar, the house, everything. Instead of putting money in the bank, we invested in the land”.
Currently, the property has 10 hectares of red vineyards and five hectares of white.
Adding another personal element to the wines, the wine bottle labels are actually details of paintings by Cláudia, “to give a little touch of passion for the project, and make it different,” she says.
Currently, Quinta do Cume’s total production is around 40,000 bottles.
“We started selling three or four thousand bottles, then we expanded. Now we sell up to 40,000 bottles, but we can increase to 100,000 bottles, which is our goal and hence our coming to Asia”, Cláudia notes.
Among the reds, Cláudia is particularly happy with their single variety Touriga Nacional, much appreciated in Macau and Hong Kong. Quinta do Cume Touriga Nacional is made from a variety of different parcels, each comprising of different aged vines (ranging from 5 to 40 years of age) which is what gives this wine such a unique personality.
While the older vines give the wine its concentration and complexity the younger vines balance it out with freshness.
“I was amazed at the acceptance, because it’s a mono-chaste of a typical Portuguese grape variety, and people love it,” she concludes.
Quinta do Cume wines recently participated in the Annual Tasting and 24th Anniversary Dinner organized by the Macau and Hong Kong Wine Society on January 18. They are sponsors of this event that takes place annually at the Portuguese Consul Residence.
