To make wines with soul, that leave lasting memories, in a landscape that breathes history… that is the dream we live.
In 2014, after selling part of their business, Christian Vermet and his wife Mary started looking for a new project to work on together. They fell in love with the wine making region of the Alentejo in Portugal and bought Herdade de Ceuta. They started with 3 hectares of vines and quickly became consumed by viticulture. They became firm friends with their technical advisor Filipe Perdiz and his wife Helena both of whom own vineyards and are qualified winemakers. Over many glasses of wine it became clear that all four shared the same dream, to make a top quality Alentejo wine. They bought more vineyards, then an old farm building and in 2017 they held the inauguration of their Adega to coincide with the bottling of their first wines. Their different cultural and life experiences makes for a dynamic team and drives them to break their individual boundaries and move forward with a common goal to develop individual wines from their terroir.
Vineyards
The birthplace of our wines
Our company is located next to the medieval village of Monsaraz, one of the oldest settlements in Portugal, surrounded by vines and olive groves. As a family company, we pride ourselves on producing wines from indigenous grape varieties, perfectly adapted to local conditions, planted on our 110 hectares of vineyard. We attach great importance to all interventions in the annual cycle of the vineyard, from the first pruning to the harvest, limiting the use of pesticides and using all resources to maximize sustainability. With this philosophy of strong connection to the origins, and maximum respect for nature, we intend to make wines with their own identity and authentic style.
It is also based on this strong ecological awareness that we decided to gradually convert our viticulture to organic production.
The diversity of the vine is a priority in our viticulture. In collaboration with PORVID (Portuguese Association for the Diversity of the Vine), we carry out clonal selection studies on several hectares of our vineyards. The clonal selection of each variety has our special attention, given that its usefulness can serve to face climate change and consumer preferences.
The winery
Place of creation
Our philosophy of quality and respect for our ecosystem also applies to our winery. We only vinify our own grapes, using the best of traditional practices and modern technologies. We vinify with temperature control, but the interventions during vinification are minimal. We want our wines to be true expressions of the grape varieties and our terroir.
