Herdade do Mouchão | Alentejo, Portugal

Herdade do Mouchão’s story begins in 1824, when Thomas Reynolds arrived in Porto and founded an export business that soon led his family to the Alentejo. By the mid‑19th century, vineyards at Mouchão were overseen by Robert Hunter Reynolds, whose nephew William would later champion Portugal’s fight against phylloxera. In 1901, John and Rafael Reynolds built the estate’s striking whitewashed adobe winery, complete with high chestnut‑beamed ceilings, nine stone lagares, four wooden presses and century‑old oak and chestnut casks. This dedication to traditional craft has remained virtually unchanged for over a century.

Inside the cool, eucalyptus‑fringed valley, grapes are still hand‑harvested, foot‑trodden with full stalks and pressed by those original manual presses over a wood‑fired furnace. The porous, neutral ageing vats, made of Portuguese oak, chestnut staves and exotic mahogany and macacaúba heads, allow each wine to speak clearly of Mouchão’s unique soils. The rare “press wines” from those old lagars are particularly prized for their freshness and depth.