Las Vedras "Pero Negro" Tinto 2019

Press 2 • August/September 2026 Direct Press Selection

Sonia Raposo met Pedro Marques in 2013 as she was getting deeper into wine and backing away from her career in HR for a pharmaceutical company. She had already been interning and working harvest in addition to taking and then teaching WSET classes. Pedro came from a winemaking family in Torres Vedras, less than an hour up the Atlantic coast from Lisbon, about 5 miles from the ocean, but not a region with much of a reputation for fine wine. His family's winery, Val de Capucha, was one of the only organic producers in the area. Sonia and Pedro wanted to take this even further, and they began finding older plots of indigenous varieties that they could piece together. The wines rarely have any sulfur additions unless they feel it's the only way to save the wine. Sonia and Pedro have now fully left Pedro's family winery to focus on Las Vedras, and now other winemakers are seeing the potential in the area's old vines, Kimmeridgian chalky soils (same as Champagne, Chablis, and Sancerre), and unique heritage of grapes.

One of those unique grapes is Tinta Miuda, not a grape of any renown but that may not be its fault. Blended with Castelao and put In the hands of Sonia and Pedro it almost approaches the zero sulfur Burgundies of Vin Noe or Julien Altaber. It's from a single vineyard, and the Castelao is fermented whole cluster while the Tinta Miuda is destemmed, which they feel is necessary to tame its astringency. It's fermented and aged in 500L barrel, with two years of aging to soften the wine. After all that taming of the Tinta Miuda's rough edges, it's a pretty sleek, elegant wine with sumac, cherry, umami, and tannic finesse. There's a little volatility but this only adds a bit of nervy edge that makes it even more compelling. Jonathan Kemp