Quinta do Vale Meão

Douro Superior · the final masterpiece of Dona Antónia Ferreira · in her family’s hands since 1877

The wines of Vale Meão are among the very best of the Douro, and we invite you to discover them. You taste not only characterful wine but also 150 years of fascinating history. At the end of the 19th century, Vale Meão was the crowning achievement of Dona Antónia Ferreira’s work, and her descendants still do her legacy full justice today.

Quinta do Vale Meão is available in Belgium from The Portugal Collection. We import the wines directly and deliver throughout Belgium.

View the wines of Quinta do Vale Meão

Location of Quinta do Vale Meão in the Douro Superior

1877

Dona Antónia buys the land in the Douro Superior

1952

The first Barca Velha, made with grapes from Vale Meão

2000

The first Quinta do Vale Meão under its own label

300 ha

original area, bought from the municipality of Vila Nova de Foz Côa

The work of Dona Antónia

Quinta do Vale Meão was created under the impetus of Dona Antonia Adelaide Ferreira. This strong woman, in the mid-19th century, was put in charge of her family's moribund port house. She would transform it into one of the most powerful producers and by far the largest landowner in the region. The list of domains she managed to acquire for the Ferreira family during her career is nothing short of astounding. Vargellas, Vallado, Vesuvio, these are just a few of the quintas that would gain world fame among porto lovers in the 20th century.

At the same time she became the great patron of the region, building schools, parks and other facilities for the local population.

In 1877 Dona Antónia bought 300 ha of land from the municipality of Vila Nova de Foz Côa in the Douro Superior. Her ambition: to build a model vineyard there from scratch. The project was only completed a year before her death in 1896, but it gave birth to Quinta do Vale Meão. The estate has remained in the hands of her descendants to this day.

Portrait of Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira

Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira (1811–1896), the ‘Ferreirinha’ of the Douro.

Vale Meão shortly after the vineyards were planted.

Map of the Ferreira family’s quintas along the Douro

The advance eastwards: the Ferreira family’s quintas along the river.

Historic document from the Vale Meão archive

From the archive: documents on the acquisition of Vale Meão.

Fernando Nicolau de Almeida creating Barca Velha

Fernando Nicolau de Almeida, the father of Barca Velha.

From Barca Velha to Vale Meão

In the late 1940s, Fernando Nicolau de Almeida, then winemaker at the port house Ferreira, convinced his employer to make a wine in the Douro modelled on the great châteaux he had visited in Bordeaux. It helped that he was married to a daughter of the Ferreira family, and so he could pursue his dream: creating the great Portuguese icon wine.

Thus, in 1952, Quinta do Vale Meão produced a wine named after the old ferry that served at the level of the estate: Barca Velha or old ferry.

When Francisco Javier de Olazabal, a fourth-generation descendant of Dona Antónia, became director at Ferreira in the 1970s, he gradually acquired all the shares in Vale Meão. From 1994 he was the full owner, so the estate stayed in the family when Ferreira was sold to Sogrape in the late 1990s. Until 1998 the family still supplied grapes for Barca Velha; from 2000 the entire harvest stayed on the estate for the first Quinta do Vale Meão under its own label.

Schist, heat and the river

Deep in the Douro Superior, where the Douro sweeps through a wide bend, lie the vineyards of Vale Meão.

Father and son Olazabal

The ambition could only be very high. After all, the tone had been set by Barca Velha. A new wine, from the same famous vineyards, could not be understated.

From then on, Francisco ‘Xito’ Olazabal gradually took over his father’s role. Over the following years he refined the wine enormously, until today it is internationally recognised as one of Portugal’s greatest red wines.

Winemaker Francisco ‘Xito’ Olazabal tasting on the quinta’s terrace

Francisco Javier de Olazabal and his son, winemaker Francisco ‘Xito’ Olazabal.

Barrels in the cellar of Quinta do Vale Meão

The wines

Quinta do Vale Meão is a blend of mainly Touriga Nacional, complemented by Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca and Tinta Roriz. It ages in French oak barrels, most of them new each year. A powerful wine, yet one that always keeps its balance.

Alongside the top cuvée, the estate makes Meandro, a more accessible wine which, being less concentrated, ages in older barrels. Although meant to be drunk younger, it also ages beautifully in bottle.

Under the Monte Meão label come single-plot wines. On a small plot right in front of the winery, a strip of granite surfaces between the schist. There the family deliberately planted Baga, the grape best known from Bairrada. Xito turns it into a very refined Douro: Vinha da Cantina.

A look at the estate

The Vale Meão chapel among the vineyards

Our Quinta do Vale Meão selection