Quinta de Covela Avesso Vinho Verde

About Quinta de Covela Avesso Vinho Verde

Quinta de Covela Avesso Vinho Verde shows aromas that are reminiscent of apple, citrus fruits and white flowers, it goes perfectly with Mediterranean fish and vegetable cuisine or just as a summery wine for the terrace. Organic, vegan and fermented without enzymes.

About Quinta de Covela

The Covela story is an interesting one. It’s a beautifully situated estate on the border of the Minho and Douro and is in the warmest part of the Vinho Verde region. The vineyard consists of two amphitheaters of vines in a sort of kidney shape, fringed by hills.

The previous owner, Nuno Araujo, went bust with a badly timed property development on the estate, and so the bank auctioned it in 2009. Araujo’s plan had been to build 12 condos, and the first three were put on the market in 2007 but didn’t sell. At the time, current owners Tony Smith and Marcelo Lima bid for it and won, but in a strange twist, the bank made their own bid for Covela and acquired it, and then went bust themselves, being absorbed into a state-owned bank. Two years later the bank called Smith and Lima and asked if they were still interested.

So, when Tony Smith arrived here in 2011, Covela had been abandoned for two years. Because of this, some replanting was necessary. There was quite a bit of esca (a fungal trunk disease). Half the existing vineyard was pulled out and portions were replanted and regrafted. Covela used to have 13 hectares of vines; now there are 17 hectares on the 50-hectare property. The previous regime had used biodynamics; now Tony’s idea is to convert to organic certification.

Under the previous regime, Covela’s wines had been 50:50 white and red. One of the changes Smith and Lima have made is shifting the balance more in favor of the whites, reducing the proportion of international varieties and focusing more on the Portuguese ones. This means that in the winery some barrels will disappear, giving more cellar capacity because tanks are a more efficient use of space. Some concrete tanks have been renovated: Tony would have liked to use cement but he couldn’t get the right guarantees so he had to line them with stainless steel. Ultimately, the goal is for the estate to be 80% white, with Avesso the main grape.

Covela’s intention is to make serious white Vinho Verde. ‘We have to know how to take the concept of Vinho Verde,’ says Tony, ‘because this is what we should be promoting, but on the other hand we are different from the mass-produced Vinho Verde.’