Portugal’s power couples: A trio of progressive wine estates

For many couples, living and working in the same space 24/7 during lockdown has been akin to a social experiment – often with less-than-successful results, judging by the spike in divorce rates over the past year. How does one navigate the pitfalls so that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

Portuguese wine producers are well versed in the art of blending. For three egalitarian ‘power couples’, the road map was already drawn.

Turbocharged communication skills and pooled resources have fuelled the success of millennial labels from Sandra Tavares da Silva and Jorge Serôdio Borges (Wine & Soul), Filipa Pato and William Wouters (Pato & Wouters) and Catarina Vieira and Pedro Ribeiro (Herdade do Rocim).

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores from three Portuguese winemaking couples

While each couple have arrived at their own blend of roles and rules, there are common threads.

For all of them, work is life. ‘It’s impossible to have boundaries,’ admits Tavares da Silva.

Shared values, bonds of trust and being curious have been cornerstones of success – whether they’re working together or apart. ‘New projects and new opportunities open your mind,’ observes Ribeiro. He has an independent label, Bojador, while Tavares da Silva and Serôdio Borges also have side projects (Crochet and MOB, respectively) with winemaker friends.

Learning together – constantly pushing, improving and supporting one another – has catapulted these 21st-century progressives to the forefront of Portugal’s contemporary wine scene. Here, the sum has been greater than the parts.

North Portugal: Douro

Sandra Tavares da Silva & Jorge Serôdio Borges (top)

Wine & Soul

Not only were Sandra Tavares da Silva (an intern at Quinta Vale D Maria) and Jorge Serôdio Borges (employed by Niepoort) new to winemaking, but they were at the vanguard of modern Douro winemaking when they met in 1999. Serôdio Borges was stunned by the intern-cum-model from Lisbon who loved this rugged, remote region of his birth. Bonding over their shared conviction on the Douro’s potential, they talked about making a wine together from day one.

It was a heady time, explains Tavares da Silva, tasting widely with other young winemakers from around the world. Serôdio Borges recalls: ‘We realised Douro wines didn’t have the same finesse, fruit or balance as Italian or French wines.’ It motivated them to ‘go to another level, keeping a classic style, but with some modernity’, explains Tavares da Silva.

Marrying in 2001, the couple’s dream came true that year when they bought an old cellar. Next, they found the perfect site to realise their vision: Pintas vineyard, in Vale de Mendiz. Serôdio Borges negotiated a loan, enabling the cash- strapped pair to acquire Pintas in 2003.

Everyone said they were crazy and that it was too expensive, remembers Tavares da Silva, the marketeer, but the couple were unafraid to position their brooding, richly fruited, powerful red among the Douro’s best. A pact to reinvest profits and continue making wine for others helped them pursue other goals, including making Pintas Vintage Port.

Since 2004, several elevated, old-vine parcels in Porrais have produced Wine & Soul Guru, an exceptional Douro white, recently joined by Guru NM, an innovative non-vintage iteration. In 2009, Wine & Soul inherited Quinta da Manoella, from which it produces an elegant red and a tawny Port.

Since 2015 and 2019 respectively, Tavares da Silva and Serôdio Borges have focused on Wine & Soul, now with 15 staff. There have been no major disagreements, they say. Rather, says Tavares da Silva: ‘We have grown together; you cannot learn and improve without being open and humble.’ They have a big support network, divide up markets and travel one at a time, while the other looks after their three children and household.

Making wine hand-in-glove, Serôdio Borges believes that ‘different perspectives and sensitivities help us achieve another level’. As for the business of wine, Tavares da Silva describes her husband as more adventurous.

Serôdio Borges is quick to credit ‘the ground under my feet’ – the bedrock of mutual trust and respect without which, he admits: ‘I could not have accepted the challenges and investment… It has been very important to have the same philosophy, goals and passion.’

Central Portugal: Bairrada

Filipa Pato & William Wouters

Pato & Wouters

Descended from Bairrada wine-growers and Belgian restaurateurs respectively, Filipa Pato and William Wouters hardly had baptisms of fire. The pair were destined to follow their forebears – Pato was even baptised with wine.

In 2003, their paths crossed in Antwerp at Wouters’ restaurant Pazzo, when Pato’s Belgian importer introduced the winemaker to her biggest customer.

They got off to a feisty start. Pato dismissed Sicily as too hot for making wine. Wouters, a multi-award-winning sommelier, retorted with a bottle of a Cos amphora-fermented Pithos. She forgot to take it home. A year later, Wouters’ comments about Pato’s cryoextraction ‘ice wine’ caused offence. Luckily, seated across from one another at a lunch, opposites attracted.

At the Belgian importer’s wedding the following year, they hatched plans for Wouters to join Pato on a work trip to Brazil in 2006. This time, the stars aligned. The trip became a holiday when Pato’s wine shipment was delayed, allowing the couple to indulge their love of wine, food and travel.

Returning to Europe, the entrepreneurs bought a Lisbon flat for weekend trysts and founded Vinhos Doidos (‘Crazy Wines’). Pato wintered in Antwerp, getting to know Pazzo’s extensive wine list. It was a formative time, tasting together and discussing the wine and food angle from a producer/sommelier perspective.

Belgium was the perfect launch pad for visits to Champagne, Burgundy and Piedmont, where Wouters opened doors to growers and, says Pato, ‘my horizons’.

In 2014, the couple (now with two sons) decided to settle in Bairrada and cultivate their growing portfolio of old vineyards biodynamically.

Wouters sold his restaurant, only to be offered the position of chef to the Belgium football team during the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Pato encouraged Wouters to accept this and other prestigious appointments, including organising the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale (ASI) Best Sommelier of the World Contest in Antwerp (2019) and becoming ASI President (2020). ‘I’m so addicted to winemaking, it would be boring being married to another winemaker,’ she jokes. ‘She never switches off,’ he says. ‘He balances me,’ confirms Pato.

While Pato is responsible for viticulture and winemaking, the pair regularly taste and assess the wines together during elevage.

With finely honed people and communication skills (‘a fantastic storyteller’ says Pato), Wouters handles staff and client liaison, including preparing food and wine-matching experiences for visitors. ‘Filipa is the artwork… I’m just the frame,’ says Wouters, who adds that his main job ‘is keeping Filipa on track and keeping her curious’.

South Portugal: Alentejo

Catarina Vieira & Pedro Ribeiro

Herdade do Rocim

Arriving with a bang, Herdade do Rocim was founded in 2000 by entrepreneur José Ribeiro Vieira of Movicortes Group. Built in 2007, the arresting modern winery in Alentejo’s Vidigueira sub-region made waves, as did the maiden release, Grande Rocim Alicante Bouschet 2007, a statement red made by José’s daughter Catarina Vieira, with consultancy from António Ventura.

Due south 50km, another Alentejo newcomer was winning plaudits. Reinfried Pohl, a German mutual fund magnate, launched Herdade dos Grous wines in 2004 with winemaker Pedro Ribeiro. Like Vieira, Ribeiro cut his teeth on a ‘start-from-scratch project’, learning his craft from acclaimed winemaker Luís Duarte.

Introduced by a mutual friend in 2006, the young winemakers gradually discovered they had much more in common. The music and art lovers had independently attended the same exhibitions and concerts and hung out at the same bars. They became a couple in 2010 and, in 2013, Ribeiro joined Herdade do Rocim.

With shared values and a shared cultural aesthetic, says Vieira, the move came about organically as they discussed her work more intently after her father’s death in 2012. Feeling they could achieve more together, the couple devised a business strategy, with the help of her father’s business associates. ‘Two winemakers could have been a recipe for chaos,’ reflects Ribeiro, ‘so it forced us to have goals.’

Initially, he admits, working together was tricky. ‘Each with strong ideas, we clashed a lot; I’m very fast and into shortcuts; Catarina is a perfectionist.’ Vieira responds: ‘My father always said that without information you can only react, but with information you can make decisions. So I push him to look in a deeper way.’

Ribeiro credits Vieira’s attention to detail with producing better results and inspiring him to make new wines (Rocim now produces 28 labels, including an innovative, clay-aged wine range). Meanwhile, Ribeiro’s focus on winemaking and promotion has freed up Vieira to pursue her passion for viticulture. ‘We’re totally aware of each other’s work, but just separate actually doing it,’ he observes.

Together, they have made Rocim a hub for amphora wine culture. Nearly 1,000 people attended Rocim’s inaugural 2018 Amphora Wine Day. This showcase for Portuguese and international producers has expanded their sphere of influence, as has their new import and distribution business for talha wines. ‘We were two kids in the beginning and it was stressful,’ says Ribeiro, ‘but we put Rocim on the map and now share the successes. It’s a very personal project.’

See the top wines from our trio of Portuguese winemaking couples

Wines are listed in descending score order per the above order of estates

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