I had my first contact with the Douro and Quinta do Crasto back in 1962, the year I married Leonor Guedes de Almeida, a granddaughter of Constantino de Almeida. A lifelong passion was then born – it’s been more than 40 years – that has brought me great joys but also required great sacrifices along the way.

In 1994 we started to bottle and sell our table wines, and soon afterwards we began marketing port wines from the Quinta’s old stocks being the 1978 Crasto Vintage Port the first to be produced with commercial purposes . At the same time, I was fortunate to be able to bring my three children - Miguel, Tomás and Rita - to work with me in this project, sharing with them the pleasure of placing Quinta do Crasto on the Portuguese and the world’s wine map.

We made considerable investments, starting with the vineyards – in our opinion the most important asset for the quality of our wines – and in recent years added more than 35 hectares of new plantations. We then focused on remodelling the winery and storage facilities and built a new cellar for oak barrels. With the Douro wines in frank expansion, we decided to invest again: our recently purchased Quinta da Cabreira, in the Upper Douro Valley is a 120-hectare estate, of which 100 are planted with new vines.

Along these years the work of our oenologists was crucial, with their different and highly enriching experiences and styles, were responsible for making our wines.

This has been a great adventure, and one that fortunately brought us many successes, year after year. And I’m sure we have not seen the end of the road, and that more adventures will come.

The passion goes on…