Video: visiting Constantino Ramos, one of the most exciting producers in Portugal’s Vinho Verde region
Constantino Ramos came from the pharmaceutical industry, where he was running clinical trials, and shifted to his passion, wine. He worked alongside famed consultant winemaker Anselmo Mendes for 9 years, and this is when he started making his own wines. Vinho Verde is famous for lighter white wines, but in the past the region of Monção and Melgaço used to make more reds. Constantino found an old red vineyard owned by a cousin of his wife, and made his first wine from it in 2016: a lighter red made by cold soaking crushed grapes and then fermenting the wine like a white after pressing. It was well received, and now he makes a mix of reds and whites from promising vineyards at 200-300 m in Riba de Mouro. Here we visit some of the vineyards, as well as taking a trip to Branda de Santo António at the top of the mountain. This is owned by Riba de Mouro and in the past the villagers moved up to the mountain for summer grazing of their cows.
