Colares: A Day in the Westernmost Vineyards in Europe

A few weeks ago we put up a list of things we could not find out about this voyage, and the first one was which of the four small wine regions near Lisbon was worth a whole day. We said Colares. We were right, and not for the reason we thought.

A clipped topiary arch with an iron gate set into a low yellow garden wall, a young citrus tree on the lawn, and the Atlantic a flat pale line on the horizon beyond — The garden looks west. That flat pale line past the wall is the Atlantic, and it is the reason the rest of this works.

The most western vineyards of Europe

That is not our line. It is printed across the top of their own price list, under the crest, and standing in the garden it stops sounding like marketing. The lawn runs out to a low yellow wall with a topiary arch cut into it and an iron gate hung in the gap. Past the arch the land falls away through pines and red roofs, and then there is nothing between you and America. It is a working estate rather than a show one, but somebody has spent a great deal of care on the few hundred square metres a visitor actually stands in, and it pays off the moment you walk through that arch.

What the driver told us

The hotel arranged a car and a driver for the day, and that turned out to matter more than we expected. It is forty-five minutes each way, and he talked for most of both. By the time we came over the last rise we knew more about the man who started this place than anything we had read beforehand had told us.

Casal Sta. Maria was founded in 2006 by Baron Bodo von Bruemmer, who was ninety-six years old. Ninety-six. There had been other things on this land before the vines — horses, for one, an earlier ambition that never quite became what he wanted it to be. And roses. Thousands of roses, planted here for his wife.

We cannot vouch for a word of it. It is what a driver told us on the road out of Lisbon and we have checked none of it. We are passing it on because it is the story the place tells about itself, and because a man looking at a hillside at ninety-six and deciding it is not too late to start something is the best thing we have heard all year.

The vines were never grafted

This is the part we came for, and the part that is genuinely different from a nice afternoon at any other winery.

When phylloxera went through Europe in the late nineteenth century it destroyed almost everything, and the fix — the only fix — was to dig up the vineyards and replant them grafted onto American rootstock. Essentially all of European wine is still grown that way today. Colares escaped, because the louse cannot travel through deep sand, and the old vineyards here are still standing on their own roots. There are very few corners of the continent where that sentence is true.

We had read all of that before we booked. Reading it and standing in it are not the same thing. One honest caveat, though: that is the story of Colares, and we are not going to stretch it over every row on this particular estate. Casal Sta. Maria is a modern operation, replanted this century and growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir alongside the local grapes, so assuming every vine on the property predates the blight would be our invention rather than their claim. The regional fact is solid. The estate-by-estate detail is the thing to ask about, and we will pin it down before we write the wines up.

A row of trellised vines with one section of leaves turned deep crimson against the green, growing over pale sandy soil — Turning while we were there. Note what the vines are growing in.

What they actually make, which surprised us

We had assumed a tiny, defensive list of the two traditional Colares grapes and little else. Not so. There is a Reserva in white and red, and a Malvasia, which is the white grape the region is known for. Then it gets interesting: a Sauvignon Blanc, a Chardonnay, and a Pinot Noir with a Grande Reserva above it. Pinot Noir, on the windy Atlantic edge of Portugal. There is a late-harvest sweet wine at the end.

And then there are three that go out under names rather than grape varieties: 3000 Rosas, Mar de Rosas and Pêndulo. We had seen that list before we came and filed them as the house blends, the ones you skip past to get to the serious bottles.

Then we heard about the roses. Three thousand of them. A sea of them. Planted on this hillside for his wife.

Read the names again.

There is one more, Ramisco — the red grape Colares is actually famous for, the one every article about this region is really about. It is on the list. Both of them are, the DOC and a 2011 Grande Reserva. Both are struck through with a line. We did not need that explained. If you want Ramisco, ask well before you turn up, and do not assume.

Two whitewashed stone arches of the tasting room, with a round table under a white cloth set up outside them and a wine barrel standing alongside — The tasting happens out here, at one table, under the arches. There was nobody else booked.

It is a private visit rather than a cellar door you wander into, and the difference shows. One table, set up outside under the arcade, with bread and olives and walnuts and a jug of cold water, and nobody standing over you waiting for the next group.

The guide who took us round was Portuguese with a long stretch of New York in the middle, and had come home with the accent and the delivery intact — quick, funny, hands going, the opposite of a recited script. If you have ever sat through a tasting read off a card you will know exactly how much difference that makes.

A glass of red wine on a white tablecloth beside a jug of iced water, a basket of bread and small dishes of olives and walnuts — The right amount of fuss.

Jen at the tasting table in sunglasses, holding up a glass of red wine etched with the Casal Sta. Maria crest — Jen, forming an opinion.

Go down to the cellar

If you only do the tasting you will have had a lovely couple of hours and missed the best room on the property. The barrel cellar is a long stone barrel vault, two rows of French oak down either side, a deep red floor running the length of it, and a ceiling blotched black and grey with however many decades of cellar mould. It is dim and completely silent and it smells like you would want it to.

A long barrel-vaulted cellar with oak barrels in rows down both walls and a deep red floor running between them — The barrels carry the estate name, and the cooper’s: Tonnellerie Millet, in France, since 1832.

Chris and Jen standing between rows of barrels in front of MAR DE ROSAS painted in large letters across the end wall of the cellar — A sea of roses, painted straight onto the end wall. The chalk on the barrelheads runs from 2019 to this year.

Management

Not mentioned on any website we read beforehand, and the single most important thing we can tell you.

A pug sitting on the stone flagstones of the terrace, looking up at the camera — He supervised the whole visit and accepted no bread.

What we’d tell you

Do not try to do it on a cruise turnaround day. This was the thing we most wanted to know before booking and the answer is a flat no. Give it the whole day, before the ship or after it.
Let the hotel book the car. We nearly did this with a taxi app and we would have missed the entire first half of this post. A driver who knows the estate and will talk for forty-five minutes is not a transfer, it is part of the visit.
Book ahead, and book the cellar. It is a private visit, and the cellar is not a given. Ask for it by name.
Autumn is a good time. The vines were turning, the hydrangeas were going over, and we had the place to ourselves.
Ask about Ramisco before you travel if that is what you are coming for.
You can carry it out yourself. They will ship, and it says so at the bottom of the list, but we walked out with six bottles and took them onto the ship by hand.

One response to “Colares: A Day in the Westernmost Vineyards in Europe”

Lanzarote: Vines in the Ash – Two Passports

October 16, 2026

[…] days apart, the same survival story twice. Colares and La Geria are both small, old vineyards on the Atlantic, and both grow on their own roots […]