The Comendador's House: Quinta do Quintão, a Vinho Verde Estate in Santo Tirso

Some houses introduce themselves at the door. Quinta do Quintão does it at the gate, in stone and in tile.

In São Tomé de Negrelos, on the edge of Santo Tirso, a granite gateway carries a date: ANNO MDCCLXXI, 1771. Above it rise a cross and stone volutes; on either side, azulejo panels painted long afterwards show oxen, ladders and a harvest. Between the two lies the story of a Vinho Verde estate and of the man who made it his own: Comendador Alberto Pimenta Machado, textile industrialist of the Ave valley.

The gateway of Quinta do Quintão: the date 1771 cut in granite, the twentieth century told in tile.

A gate that spans two centuries

Read the gate from the top down. The stone belongs to the eighteenth century and to the Minho: pinnacles, a scrolled crest crowned by a cross, a cornice that swings up over the doorway, two granite benches for whoever is kept waiting. The Latin date sits on the lintel, where no one can miss it.

The tiles belong to another age. A ceramic sign spells out the name of the quinta. To the left, a couple and their child rest beside a pair of oxen under a vine pergola. To the right, the harvest: women climb tall ladders into the trees, baskets on their arms, as grapes were once picked in the north, from vines trained high into the branches. It is the vinha de enforcado, the old Minho way of growing wine, painted at the very entrance of a wine estate.

Stone for permanence. Tile for memory.

The Comendador of Negrelos

The street outside bears his name, and its plaque says the rest: Comendador Alberto Pimenta Machado, benefactor, 1896–1964. A merchant and industrialist in textiles, he was made a Commander of the Order of Benemerência in 1944, and in the 1950s he was counted among the names that set the standard for industry in the Ave valley.

Negrelos was the right place for such a man. In 1845 the Rio Vizela mill was founded in the parish, one of the first in Portugal to spin cotton by machine. A century later, the valley's industrialists made their fortunes in the mills and their lives in the countryside around them. Quinta do Quintão was where the Comendador's family lived theirs, and it remains with his great-grandchildren today.

“The mills made the fortune. The quinta kept the family.”

Inside the house

The inner courtyard: granite walls, a lobed fountain, an iron balcony and a blue-and-white saint beside a window.

Behind the gate, the house closes around a courtyard paved with great granite slabs. A lobed fountain stands at its centre, an iron balcony projects from the main wing, and a tiled panel of a saint keeps watch beside a window. Two storeys of dressed granite rise above a cellar that still holds the estate's great wooden vats.

The dining room: a coffered ceiling picked out in blue, a granite fireplace and a dado of patterned tiles.

The interiors are largely those of a twentieth-century country house, made for long family tables. In the dining room, a coffered ceiling of dark timber is picked out in blue, a granite fireplace faces a carved table, and a dado of blue and yellow azulejos runs around the walls. Tile is everywhere in the house, including pieces from Viúva Lamego, the Lisbon factory whose name dates from 1876.

The corridor steps up between walls of blue-and-white tile.

A long corridor carries the house from room to room, climbing a few wooden treads between walls of blue and white tiles that follow the rise in a zigzag. Fifteen rooms open off it. Beyond the main house stand the caretaker's house, the priest's house, an old granary and the buildings of the vineyard: the full cast of a working quinta.

A house built for Sunday lunch, and for Monday's harvest.

Vinho Verde in terraces

The vineyards today: terraces of trained vines, an orchard and the woods above.

The vines no longer climb the trees. Today the estate's land falls in terraces held by granite walls, the rows trained on wires, an orchard and a water tank at their foot, pine and eucalyptus on the ridge above. This is the Vinho Verde region, in its Ave sub-region, where Loureiro, Arinto and Trajadura are the varieties of reference.

From the upper terraces the view runs out over Santo Tirso and the valley that made the Comendador's name: the mills below, the vines above, the house in between.

The quinta today

Quinta do Quintão covers some 14 hectares in São Tomé de Negrelos, with its manor house and cellar, its ancillary houses, a pool among the vines and a vineyard in production, within easy reach of Porto. It is for sale through Wiseguys Properties: see Quinta do Quintão. For another house where each generation left its mark, read the story of the Mellos Josés Palace in Elvas.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Quinta do Quintão?

In São Tomé de Negrelos, in the municipality of Santo Tirso, district of Porto, in the Ave valley of northern Portugal.

How old is Quinta do Quintão?

Its granite gateway is dated 1771 (ANNO MDCCLXXI). The azulejo panels at the gate and much of the interior belong to the twentieth century.

Who was Comendador Alberto Pimenta Machado?

A textile merchant and industrialist of the Ave valley (1896–1964), made a Commander of the Order of Benemerência in 1944 and remembered as a benefactor of Negrelos.

What is vinha de enforcado?

The traditional Minho method of training vines high into trees, harvested from tall ladders. It is the scene painted on the right-hand panel of the quinta's gate.

Is Quinta do Quintão for sale?

Yes, through Wiseguys Properties.

Further reading: Buying Land in Portugal: BUPi, the Land Registry and Rural Plots.

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Sources: Arquivo Histórico da Presidência da República (Order of Benemerência, 1944); Tratave bulletin no. 54 (2018) on the industry of the Ave valley; Junta de Freguesia de São Tomé de Negrelos; property records. Photography: Wiseguys Properties. Wiseguys Properties, AMI 23109 · info@wgpadvisors.com