Quinta da Carolina

Luis Candido da Silva Jr, head enologist/wine director Dirk Niepoort’s still Douro program (as of 2023), made his first vintage at his father’s Quinta da Carolina in 2015. Facing north, this certified organic vineyard is a massale selection field blend of more than a dozen varieties grown on steeply terraced, hard blue and yellow schist bedrock and topsoil with some river sediments. Though managed and worked by Luis, fruit is also purchased (for Xis and El3mento) in higher altitude vineyards just south of Quinta da Carolina, further up into the apex of the area. Luis’ immensely different range of field-blend wines ferment spontaneously, often with stem inclusion and foot stomping. A variety of aging vessels are employed from old French oak, inox, amphora, and 1100L 60-year-old German oak fuder.