CHINADO
In 2017, João Tereso, a sound engineer, ventured into winemaking to save his grandfather’s small plots of field-blend vines in Alcobaça, an hour north of Lisbon, from abandonment.
With the guidance of his friend, local agronomist and winemaker Rodrigo Martins (Espera Wines), he learned the craft of caring for vines. With a focus on low doses of sulphur but high doses of care & attention, the work required to produce low intervention wines is hefty, but João loves it.
By 2018, he had added two more abandoned vineyards to his flock. These 30-80 year old vines are situated on hillsides at about 150 meters (around 500 feet) elevation and have been farmed organically since 2021.
The name “Chinado” has a perfect double meaning.
‘Chinado’ is slang for ‘stabbed,’ as ‘chino’ is slang for knife. Some of João’s wines can catch us off guard and might give us a little nick, perhaps a little zip on our palates.
However, ‘chino’ also refers to a stone used to demarcate property boundaries, so a plot marked by stones is ‘chinado.’
Can’t get more old-school than that.
