The quinta — Casa da Amoreira

I · The place

Granite soil, hard light, cold nights.

The quinta sits in the municipality of Fundão, in Castelo Branco. Hard light, cold nights, and more rock in the ground than earth. Olives want exactly that.

A tall bottle resting in the fork of a lichen-covered olive tree — Lichen on the bark is a fair sign of the air up here.

II · The trees

Three hundred years, and counting.

Seventy trees, some young and some very old. The oldest have been standing at least three hundred years and you cannot get your arms around them. The young ones were put in so there is still a grove here long after the old ones have gone.

A bottle at the mossy foot of an ancient olive trunk — Trunks you cannot get your arms around, still carrying fruit.

III · The orchard

Everything else that grows here.

The olives are not the only thing growing. Cherries, oranges, apples, pears, plums, figs and loquats — all of it eaten here. A quinta this size feeds itself first.

cherries
oranges
apples
pears
plums
figs
loquats

IV · In numbers

1.5hectaresthe whole quinta
70olive treestended by hand
300+yearsthe oldest of them
2varietiesGalega and Cordovil
<100litresa harvest, all of it
500mlone bottle size, for now

The quinta.

Granite soil, hard light, cold nights.

Three hundred years, and counting.

Everything else that grows here.