Wine to remember…

7.30am. Cars and vans start slowly arriving at the three-hectare rural farm just a stone’s throw from Lagos. Out of them come the extraordinarily international group that has independently decided to give up their Sunday to help the Leroux family weave their special brand of magic. There are Germans, some French, a Swedish hairdresser, two Dutch artists, a young Spanish couple, an Englishwoman, a New Zealand WWOOFer (young traveller working with «World wide activities on organic farms») and even some Americans. Some already know each other, others are old friends – and a few know almost no-one at all. For New Yorkers Christine and Alexandra this is a “completely new experience”.

A welcoming cup of black coffee later, and all new arrivals are all given a bucket and a pair of scissors and sent out into the sun-filled vineyard. Under the brilliant blue skies lie over a hectare of grapes just waiting to be picked. These are the ‘Bastardo’ brand of grapes used to produce Monte da Casteleja’s increasingly popular red wines. The Bastardo is actually an ancient ‘caste’ - all but extinct elsewhere due to its susceptibility to disease and low yield. These potentially negative characteristics do not concern Leroux however. He knows how to deal with disease – and he’s not interested in high yield.

“I spent years researching the best way and the best castes of grapes to use here”, he told us when we first visited his vineyard in 2007. “It has become a passion. I want to create wines that are unique. I am not interested in quantity – only in producing quality, and creating individual wines that people come looking for. Wines that celebrate the true flavour of the Algarve.”

And in the five years that he’s been producing wine in the farm he inherited from his grandparents, this ambition has become a reality.

“All the hard work is paying off”, smiles his wife and staunchest supporter Maria.

“We have more and more people coming here now to buy the wines directly from us, and we’re busy keeping the wine shops that carry our wines stocked up”.

As Maria points out: “If you like biological wine - just like biological food - it makes more sense to buy ‘local’. That way the grapes have not had to travel, and you’re enjoying the flavour of your own region!”

Maria has learnt to become an expert over 14 years married to a wine producer. “When we first met, I didn’t even like the taste of wine”, she laughs. “Bit by bit, I’ve learnt what it means to appreciate a good wine.”

She’s delighted that her husband has finally become truly biological “as it means we can eat the grapes straight off the vine!”

As the sun turns up the heat on the harvest, some of us try the grapes as we snip them off their branches. They’re exceptionally sweet – almost melting in the mouth.

By 10am, they’re not the only things melting. The animated chatter from the start of the morning slows, and drops in pitch. Some sing quietly to themselves, others mop their brows and sigh. What a day to be working in the sun!

Just after 1pm, 20 people have managed to collect well over 3.000 kilos of grapes. This will translate to around 1.800 litres of red wine. It’s been an excellent morning – an unusually plentiful yield… and the volunteers can barely make it to the lunch table!

Now the pace shifts gear. The hard work is over… time for the fun part. Conversation, wine, delicious salads and the anticipation of step number two: the treading of the grapes.

Children, who up until now have kept a miraculously low profile, turn up to enjoy the food and friendly atmosphere in the shade. Some of the adults stretch out for 40 winks, others sit around telling stories, swapping anecdotes. Guillaume gets all the grapes into the adega (“It’s 35 degrees out there… they don’t want to be sitting anymore in the sun!”), and fires up the tractor. The children pile onto the back of it. Time for step number two.

The first into the first “lagar” (treading basin) are the little ones. Stripped down to their knickers and pants, they delight in their new responsibility while Leroux gets busy loading cases of grapes into a machine that removes their stalks.

Maria arrives in “grape-treading gear” - armed with a stack of CDs - one of the guests starts using a plastic container as a bongo drum, and the controlled chaos of treading the grapes gets into full swing.

This is where the months of hard work, the years of experience, and the traditions of a culture all come together in a form of joyous celebration.

The other lagars fill up with older legs. The two girls from New York still manage to look as if they’ve just turned up at a celebrity cocktail party, while the Quinta’s newly-arrived houseguests from Spain look on in round-eyed surprise.

It’s been a fabulous day – and the treading will go on like this for another two to three hours, to mash the grapes, releasing their tannins and the rich colour from the skins.

“I’ll never be able to look at a bottle of wine again without remembering all this,” smiles Christine, due back in New York at the beginning of September.

A truly unforgettable experience of wine…