It is no exaggeration to say that we have been interested in this great estate since we began importing from Portugal over a decade ago. However, we were only recently able to taste their wines and connect the dots between the press accolades, their iconic status in Portugal and the wines themselves. It turns out that the oldest active winery in the Alentejo, beloved of luminaries as diverse as Jancis Robinson, Sarah Ahmed and Hugh Johnson, makes not just the world-class reds we were hoping to find, but stunning, seriously age-worthy whites as well. Their methods are entirely traditional, down to foot-treading in lagares and prolonged aging in barrel and bottle. Only in their adventurous approach to trellising in the vineyards do they show a tendency to modernity. A bit of history is in order here : originally (and continuously) a cork harvesting farm, they planted vineyards in the mid 19th century, bottled their first vintage in 1949 (after selling wine in every other kind of container previously), were expropriated by the government after the 1974 revolution (and returned to the Reynolds family 11 years later), and finally got electricity in 1991. Although most of their wines are a blend of grapes, Alicante Bouschet, brought to Portugal late in the 19th century and first planted at Mouchão, dominates the upper-end bottlings and reaches its highest expression here. In virtually all areas - age, history, status, and adherence to tradition - Mouchão is akin to López de Heredia. We are immensely proud to have this new “éminence grise” in our portfolio, to cast a benevolent gaze on the younger Portuguese stars whom you all already know so well.