Via a closed winemaking system, everything - from grape growing (certified organic since 2010) and hand-harvesting to fermenting and aging, bottling and hand-labelling, packing and shipping - is done at Quinta do Tedo by our in-house team (save for outsourced harvest hands, Spring and Summer weed whacking support, and specialised services like grafting). This allows us to control the entire process and resulting quality of the Portos and Douro DOC wines we produce at Quinta do Tedo.
Our Extra Virgin Olive Oil follows a similar near 100% estate-crafted trajectory, but is processed from our hand-harvested olives independent of other growers’ at one of Douro Valley’s few certified organic presses, Agrifiba in nearby Vila Real, with top-tier cold extraction equipment.
All that said, perhaps harder than producing Portos, Douro DOC Wines and Extra Virgin Olive Oil according to the above traditional, sustainable and qualitative (albeit costly) methods, is selling them, especially when their fine quality warrant higher-than-average market prices.
Our Burgundian-Californian Bouchard Family bought Quinta do Tedo in 1992 to produce 100% estate-crafted Portos and Douro DOC wines with a terroir-driven approach. Our mature, low-yielding, certified organic, grade A classified (Porto’s equivalent to Burgundy’s Grand Cru) vineyards are composed of 20+ local grape varieties that grow in schist soils on steep vineyard terraces subject to a dry and hot mediterranean climate. Our limited annual production (40-45,000 bottles of Porto and 10-15,000 bottles of Douro DOC wine) are vinous expressions of our 14 hectare estate (10 hectares of which are in production).
Unable and unwilling to compete in volume for supermarket shelves with historic English, Scottish and Portuguese Porto houses, we decided to compete in quality and wine tourism, to invite visitors to better understand our beautiful Douro Valley region, grape varieties, viticulture techniques, traditional lagares for foot-treading and historic cellars for aging. In 2004, we were one of Douro’s first Quintas to open our doors 7 days a week for technical and personable tours in Portuguese, English, French and German, and Cellar Door sales.
To encourage visitors to get to know Douro Valley better and beyond Quinta do Tedo, we added 4 charming B&B rooms in 2011 and Bistro Terrace in 2016. Since the early 2020s (save COVID), the tables turned - now we struggle to supply prolific demand from visitors rather than stimulate it. In late 2025-early 2026 we will open a swank new Tasting Room, Casa do Cavalo, to offer more exclusive experiences and higher-end tastings for a growing number of visitors looking for them.
Quinta do Tedo is essentially our “open house” to share our authentic slice of our Douro Valley life and products with visitors. After all, we are not only a family-owned, but family-operated Quinta; I (Odile) live and work full-time at Quinta do Tedo; Vincent and Kay come into the picture June through October for the busy harvest season; and Paolo and Joseph (my brothers) support from afar (we are also co-creating a new “next generation” wine series to launch with Casa do Cavalo).
There is no recipe for success in wine tourism, yet with passion and hard work, good quality and vision, and a unique offer and united team, and satisfied returning customers to spread the word, we manage to sell the majority of our production direct-to-consumer at our Cellar Door. Neighbouring Quintas and new wine tourism projects are embracing this strategy too. Douro Valley is teeming with visitors from all walks of life - from active hiking and biking trips, luxury hotels and restaurants, and agencies flashing vintage and electric cars to large cruise ships, and passenger vans.
We have always said “yes” to everyone, but have only recently started monitoring data to better understand the behaviour of each visitor profile. Some are collectors looking for old Tawny and classic Vintage Portos, some dwell outside of city centres without access to a “wine shop around the corner” and buy in abundance year-after-year, and some are more interested in the experience - visiting, sipping and/or snapping photos for social media. Some walk-in to our Tasting Room without appointment, some reserved 1+ year ago, some entrusted a tour agency’s itinerary including Quinta do Tedo. What they all have in common is leaving enamoured by Douro Valley and Quinta do Tedo, and with newfound appreciation for Porto and Douro DOC wine.
In short, our vision is to untarnish the reputation Porto has succumbed to from its 5€ flabby, sweet and alcoholic supermarket expressions, by sharing personable experiences, memorable bottles and authentic word-of-mouth marketing of the highest quality Douro Valley has to offer. And we are thrilled to be joined in this mission by neighbouring Quintas, and family, friends, consumers and industry professionals without whose support our vision wouldn’t be fruitful nor fulfilling.
Together we rise, and so do premium Porto sales. While alcohol consumption is not exactly skyrocketing at the moment, and global sales of Porto have decreased to 7.3 million cases in 2024 from 10.5 million in 2000 (mostly in the high volume, entry-level White, Ruby and Tawny categories made from lower grade vineyards), sales of premium old Tawny, Colheita, LBV and Vintage Portos, like those we produce at Quinta do Tedo, are growing in value and now make up over 50% of the value of all Porto sold.
On that note, and back to the point of this months’ blog, a huge thank you to our Tedo Patrons around the world (some Final Consumers for over 3 decades!) and our Partners in 16 countries who support and share our vision - we raise our glasses to you, and look forward to many more years of collaboration.
~ Odile Bouchard
