When Jeannot and I set out to develop a vineyard in my native Portugal, the challenges and roadblocks we encountered turnout to be much greater then we originally bargained for. - The objective of the project was to bring the New and Old Worlds together in a bottle of wine, - requiring a viticultural model with Bordelaise grape varieties for which there were no reference appellations established in Portugal.

With roots in the Municipality of Caldas da Rainha, about 100km north of Lisbon, a regional climatic study to determined where the envisioned grape varieties would fully express their phenotype was conducted. - In 1999, climatic data to establish a Heat Summation without installing probes in multiple locations was not readily available, but after one year of searching, I discovered the Agricultural Research Center, INIA, in the Municipality of Alcobaca. - The gentleman in charge of research was impressed with my searching for climatic data to establish a vineyard in the region (Something he admitted not have heard about before), and provided me copies of five years of compile daily highs and lows taken at dawn, the coolest time of day, and between two and three pm, the warmest time of day, which I picked up the following week. - When I returned to California with hundreds of sheets with handwritten climatic data, my work was cutout to add up all the highs and lows from April 1st to October 31st of each year, and determine an average heat summation of five years, which turnout to be 2892 degree days F/1606C, closely matching the mesoclimate in the city of Napa, situated at the south end of the revered Napa Vally in California.

DETOUR BACK IN TIME::

Jeannot and I were married in Toronto, Canada, and left Toronto in 1075 for a civil engineering career opportunity with a major Precast Concrete Producer in the City of Napa, California. - We purchased a home in the small city of Walnut Creek, within a decent commute to the office in Napa, and Jeannot’s commute by train for her fashion career in San Francisco.

In 1976 the famous Paris tasting that placed California wines on the map, coupled with an article in the Fortune Magazine, alluding investors to include a vineyard in their portfolio, - the Napa Valley became all the rage with CEO’s from Silicon Valley with huge windfalls pouring money into the “Promise land” of wine and vineyards, - visionary investors from around the country diversifying their portfolios, -and prestigious French Chateaux seeking new frontiers. - Thence, in the next twenty-five years, we witnessed a symphony of noise by bulldozers clearing and grading land to plant new vineyards, tractors maintaining existing ones, and hammers building new wineries allover the valley. - Having grownup in a small wine producing family in Portugal, the urge and anxiety to switch to the wine industry was real, but family responsibility while raising two sons, kept me out of it until much later.

Drinking wine in the US was still a bit of a taboo at the time, and the future of the Napa Valley wine was still being tested. - But thanks to Robert Mondavi’s marketing genius, and the Falcon Crest TV series that kept Americans glued to their TV’s for nine years, Napa wine became an internationally recognized success virtually overnight.

After “Prohibition” that ended in December 1933, the beverage of choice for Americas was hard liquor, and wine in the US, was primarily consumed by affluent travelled Americans in fine restaurants, and European emigrants enjoying the traditional beverage of the home land. - The middle-class Americans were regularly seen after work with friends and colleagues drinking “Gin and Tonic”, and “Scotch or Bourbon on the rocks”, which seemed to account for most drinks ordered in public bars. - However, the Falcon Crest TV series, starring Jayne Wyman, that ran continually from 1981 to 1990, got Americans hooked on the intriguing grape land feuding story, revolving around the wealthy Gioberti and Chaining families, in the California wine industry set of the fictitious “Tuscany Valley”, located north-east of San Francisco, and modeled after the real Napa Valley, may have been a catalyst conveying a subliminal message to Americans, that wine was a beverage not to be frowned at, and by the turn of the century, both men and woman, seemed proud to be seen sipping a glass of wine in public places. - But that’s not all, as a decade on, the US became the biggest wine consuming nation in the world, surpassing France in 2010 (Wow! - that was near lightening speed growth in just four decades!).

BACK TO JOURNEY:

In September of 1993, after thirty-four years absence from my roots, I took Jeannot to the beautiful resort town of Foz do Arelho, where I had grownup in Portugal. - I showed Jeannot a plot of land with over 5000m2, that was handed down from my parents with gorgeous views of the Obidos lagoon. - Jeannot fell in love with the piece of land and suggested we plan to build a future retirement home on it. - That was music in my ears, and I said to Jeannot that my family had a small vineyard on that plot of land that produced very good red wine, and we could plant some vines to make wine and have a glass watching the sunset over the lagoon, - and she was all for it!

After returning to California, possessed by wine fever, I went to the Napa Valley College (NVC), and matriculated in the viticultural program headed by Dr. Stephen Krebs. - The NVC viticultural program was rated among the five best in the world at the time, and attracted students from around the world, including Europe. - In January of 1994, the General Vit class began. - I thought that having had some winemaking experience while growing up in Portugal, that it was going to be a breeze, only to find myself in a pickle to get top grades in the complex botanical science intense program. - After the first semester, I was hooked in viticulture and went on to complete the entire viticultural program with Dr Krebs over the next four years.

Unlike the sophisticated viticulture curriculum, the Enology program at NVC was a bit rudimentary until the college received some sizable donations from prestigious Napa Valley producers to build a state of the art student winery, and hired Dr Geraldine Ritchie, who designed a sophisticated enology program for NVC students, thus I went on to complete the the entire wine curricula wit Dr Ritchie, compiling a total of 68 units of core material in over 900 academia hours.

In 1999, Jeannot joined me in the enological studies, focussing on the marketing aspect of the wine business. - One Sunday morning at breakfast, Jeannot said that she thought it was a waste of wine education to do a home vineyard project in Foz do Arelho, and perhaps we should consider a more substantial project within a reasonable distance from the future retirement home. - By this time I had left the civil engineering career and moved to real estate, focussing on vineyard sales and acquisitions, and formed a small vineyard consulting company to service real estate clients in the California North Coast wine district encompassing Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties.

Jeannot’s impetus for a larger vineyard project got me started on a climate research for a suitable New World vineyard model in Portugal. - The 2892 DD heat summation acquired from INIA confirmed that the Alcobaca environs had a great climate for Bordeaux varietals, but the fruity Cabernet Sauvignon growing further up in the warmer part of the Napa Valley would inevitably have a touch of bell pepper character unless left to ripen on the vines until the end of October, taking it into the rainy season that historically begins about October 15th in coastal Portugal, and can present ripening and fruit damage problems.

In mid 2000, I subscribed to the Alcobaca newspaper ALCOA, and placed an ad soliciting agricultural land for sale, and in late winter of that year, someone contacted by email offering four hectares of land available for acquisition. -I contacted the gentleman by phone to get particulars of the land situated in the historical township of Aljubarrota, about 2km from the INIA research center. - I asked the gentleman to send me photos of the land and he hired a professional photographer and sent me photos depicting an odd topography chunk of land. - I should add that sizable pieces of land are rare and hard to find in that chopped up part of the country, but the gentleman had four contiguous independently registered parcels of land his family had acquired from neighbors over the years totaling four hectares, which we purchased and appropriately named QUATRO TERRAS.

While the heat summation in Alcobaca emulated both Napa and Bordeaux climates, the day length and angles of the sun in parallel 39, are more closely matched with Napa on parallel 38 than Bordeaux on parallel 45, and the UV index appeared significantly higher than both Napa and Bordeaux, presenting a condition of potentially harder carbohydrate bonds formed in the photosynthetic reaction, that we had no comparison for, - and unbeknownst to us, would become a blending fusion challenge later on.

As for the soils, the property is divided in the middle by an east-west seasonal creek creating two distinct terroirs with extremely high and low soil pH’s: - The north half includes two parcels with south slopes varying from 5 to 25% , with calcium gravelly soils, and soil pH varying from 7.6 to 8.2 (Yikes!), that would need serious amendments to lower the pH to a desirable level, wile the south half includes two north-west slopes separated by a chestnut grove, varying from 10 to 15% with sandstone loess with soil pH varying from 4.9 to 6.3. - The north half’s gravelly calcareous soil emulates East Bordeaux, but the south half with acidic loess soil, we had nothing to compare with, and I must admit, it was a bit worrisome.

As for the vineyard, - the vinifera plant material was selected block by block for climate, solar exposure, soil texture, soil mineralogy and soil pH, while the rootstocks were primarily selected for soil texture, soil fertility and pH, resulting in four different rootstocks one for each individual parcel.

Next challenge was irrigation: - We contacted a drilling company to helps with that effort. - The owner and his witchdoctor showed up to investigate the site. - The witchdoctor looked around and suggested we drill down by the creek, but we wanted to be up by the road for easy power access and use of an existing small structure to house irrigation equipment. - The witchdoctor reluctantly pulled out his magic wand made of spring metal, placed it on both hands at waist level, bending into a shaped tat looked like a combination of boomerang and a wishbone, and started walking in slow motion whispering what sounded like a prayer into the abyss, - After about ten minutes, the magic wand took and abrupt nosedive and he asked to have a small rock placed between his feet. - Then he said, - it is going to be deep (No specific depth), but with plenty of water. - I was impressed and spooked simultaneously, and questioning silently if we were even going to find water. - The following week the drill rig showed up and drilling commenced on the exact spot identified for drilling. - Three days into it, and drilling through bedrock, the drill reached the 100 meter mark with no water in site. - I met with the operator to decide if we quit and relocate or continue. - Having heard the witchdoctor saying it was going to be deep, I said to continue up to 200 meters deep but not more!. - Two days later, the drill pearced an aquifer at the 186 meters depth, and a surge of water erupted pushing the water level to about 25 meters from the surface. - The water supply rate was later registered at 30 cubic meters per hour/130GPM, and that was a very good day at Quatro Terras!

In September 2002, while while ordering plant material from a nursery in France, I had a flashback on a lecture, remembering Dr Krebs saying