João Brito e Cunha is one example of the new generation of winemakers and producers who settled in the Douro and launched personal projects. In his case, the challenge is to praise the family scrolls with his imprint and honor the memory of his fifth grandmother, D. Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, the “queen” of the Douro, also known as Ferreirinha.

After his degree in oenology in Vila Real, he started his career as a winemaker at Cockburns, before moving to Barossa Valley, Australia. For six months he did everything in the cellars, worked in shifts, explored the “feeling of freedom and experimentalism” of the new world of “market-centered” oenology. In the Douro, he comments “we will have to combine the best of both worlds, respecting the region’s tradition and identity, without rejecting new trends”. This cross-fertilization of knowledge has allowed him to develop his work as a consultant winemaker in several wines he made for Lavradores de Feitoria, Churchill Graham, Quinta da Touriga Chã, Quinta do Couquinho, Negreiros, etc…

Quinta de S. José became his first laboratory, opening horizons, complicity with producers and showing him the reality of the business.