Fílipa Páto

There are few rules when it comes to building a portfolio, but one gold standard is that if you start with quality, you will attract more of the same. Fílipa is good friends with Alvaro Castro and Mário Sérgio (not to mention Heidi Schröck), Vasco Croft loves her wines, and you can guess the rest. This daughter of legendary Bairrada producer Luis Pato began by producing wines in the larger appellation of Beiras (and the Dão). She purchased a small winery in Bairrada, which she has now significantly expanded (by digging downwards!). Eventually, it is assumed, she will reunite with her father’s estate, but, in the meantime, she has carved a big international name for herself by dint of her strikingly expressive and honest wines, so reflective of her own character. Joined now by her husband, renowned Belgian sommelier Willem Wouters, they have enthusiastically embraced the rigours of bio-dynamism. They have been steadily buying up new parcels of land, all within 10 km. of the home-base, some planted to old vines, others being replanted with massal selections. The estate is up to 15 hectares now, with a final goal of 22. As you can see, they constantly sell out.

Producer:	Fílipa Páto
Diversity:	Female Winemaker
Country:	Portugal
Region:	Beiras
City of Origin:	Ois do Bairro (the center of our wine universe, a village of 200 people)
Date Founded:	2001
Owner Name:	Filipa Pato & William Wouters
Vineyard Size:	15 HA
Total Annual Production:	80,000-100,000 bottles

Property History:

As when we started we didn't have any vineyards, we bought grapes from different locations in Bairrada, this to better understand the potential of the different "terroirs"... This why we called our wines "Ensaios", "try-outs". We were trying to feel all the different sites. From the beginning we focussed on indigenous grapes. For whites these were : Bical, Cercial, Arinto and Maria Gomes. For red the typical "Baga" grape, the King of Bairrada. In 2006 we bought our first vineyards and since then, almost every year, we invested in vineyards, mainly centennial ones. We were blessed to find one even more than 130 years old, a pre-phylloxera vineyard "Missao". Today we have 15ha in production and 5 more ha in the future (we planted them new in 2017). Since the beginning we worked without herbicides and since 5 years now, fully biodynamic. In the beginning we started making wine in the cellar of the grandfather of Filipa. In 2016 we moved everything to our new build winery in Ois do Bairro and we are expanding the building to optimize and improve our work even more. The future looks bright as there is more demand for the authentic wines without makeup!

Owner History:

Filipa Pato, coming from a wine dynasty in Bairrada, is a graduate of the University of Coimbra as a chemical engineer and refined her winemaker skills doing harvests in Bordeaux, Mendoza and Margaret River. William Wouters chef/sommelier/restaurateur comes from a restaurateur family from Antwerp, Belgium. He's a sommelier champion (restaurateur and former head chef of the Belgian national soccer team on the world cup in Brazil (2014) and the European cup in France (2016). Together Filipa & William share all their experiences: the love for food and wine, encounters with great wine growers, sommeliers and wine lovers from all over the world and the magical, inexhaustible culture of the world of wine. We really believe that Baga from Bairrada is probably the most terroir driven single varietal grape from Portugal! More and more international journalists and sommeliers are pointing this out! Thanks to their support we are exporting now to almost 30 countries. In 2011 Filipa was elected "Newcomer of the Year" by the main German magazine "Der Feinschmecker". The Nossa Calcario Baga 2015 was the first ever single varietal wine from Portugal to achieve a 96/100 points by Robert Parker The Wine Advocate. Filipa and William received in 2018 the "Prémio Torre de Belém Nacional" for their unique export program and the way they promote their region and its wines (first time ever for a producer from the Bairrada region). After almost 20 years we are becoming "incontournable" in the region and we are very proud of our work! We are always looking for ways to improve the overall quality of the viticulture and the winemaking.