In Alentejo, the grape-gathering follows the last days of summer and announces autumn’s arrival. During the last days of August and September, groups of workers arrive at vineyards with appropriate clothes to work, protecting themselves from the burning sun that can still be felt. Many of them are still engaged in cultural arrangements required by the vine during the year.

Increasingly, the grape-gathering is done by machines, but in the region of Portalegre the traditional grape-gathering dominates: there are the experienced hands that select the best bunches to turn into wine. By this time, we can still find in the vineyards some work teams dressed properly (straw hat, shirt, long and wide and rubber gloves), ready to manually select the best bunches.

The metallic sound of scissors starts early, before sunrise, and ends in the late afternoon, when we already lost the count of the grapes’ bunches that succumbed to the many scissors’ clips during the day. The grapes are then placed in wicker baskets and transported to the Wine Cellar.

Here, God’s nectar is converted into wine in stainless steel vats with temperature control, do a stage in oak barrels and takes body in Portalegre DOC, Quinta da Cabaça, Conventual Reserva, Conventual, Terras de Baco and Aramenha wines.

It is thanks to the contribution of its 263 members (representing about 500 hectares of vineyard) that every year, Adega Cooperativa de Portalegre is proud to present an average annual production of 2.8 million kg, which turn into two million bottles of wine, without loss of quality.

From generation to generation, great wines of Alentejo are born in Serra de S. Mamede.