Joćo Portugal Ramos may well be Portugal's most renowned enologist on the international stage. Robert Parker of the Wine Advocate considers Joćo Portugal Ramos to be one of the emerging superstars of winemaking in Portugal. Since 1980, Portugal Ramos has worked as a consultant to over a dozen other wineries, including the prestigious Rothschild-owned Quinta do Carmo, but he is now concentrating exclusively on making his own wines. Located near the gleaming white marble buildings of Estremoz, a hill town in the Alentejo district of Borba, his state of the art winery is set amidst its own 140 acres of rolling vineyards, which were originally planted in 1990. Constructed from 1997 to 2001, the winery is a marvel of tradition as well as innovation, with a sophisticated laboratory and modern fermentation equipment, but also stone lagars for crushing grapes underfoot. The cellars hold 750 barriques, including French, Portuguese, American and Slovenian cooperage, in naturally cool temperatures. The estate vines, primarily Trincadeira and Aragones, are planted on light clay schist soils.
