“For many decades people have said that Dão is the Portuguese Burgundy and, as is well known, Burgundy is the region in France where wines are more expensive, even more expensive than in Bordeaux. Therefore, what we want is to be the most expensive wine region, which means that we will have the best wines”, said Arlindo Cunha.


Dão is “the second oldest demarcated region in the country, after the Port wine region and, in terms of non-fortified wines, that is, table wines, it is the first and was created by the then Minister Ferreira do Amaral”.


Arlindo Cunha explained that the path has not always been one of glory despite this comparison with French wines having emerged at the end of the 19th century, when the region had “a great reputation for the elegance of its wines” and, “the scientist and winemaker Cincinato da Costa wrote that the Dão region produced the most elegant wines in Portugal, remembering the best wines from Burgundy”.


According to the president of the CVR, this reputation lasted until the 1980s, then “it had a difficult period of dealing with competition and other regions of the country, until Portugal joined the European Community and the support that led to the creation of other vineyards”.


“We spent about a decade and a half working to restructure and prepare for a new battle, dealing with internal and external competition, and the truth is that the strategy we followed was very wise,” Arlindo Cunha said.


At the time, at the end of the 1990s, “there was a fashion for planting foreign grape varieties” and, “happily and wisely, in a properly thought out and structured decision, [Dão] decided to structure the vineyards with its native grape varieties or those that had been grown in the region for many years, or even centuries, and time showed that it was the best way”.


“If this Dão of today, this new phase, is having the success it has, it’s because it insisted on this tradition of grape varieties, but with innovation”, he added.