Nuno is a first generation winemaker from an agricultural family. He studied agricultural engineering and fell in love with wines in college. Admittedly, he finds vines to be more interesting than cows. So he found his way to viticulture and then moved on to winemaking and from there fell very fast for the old clones that made distinctly better wines than he found around him. Often it is one bottle of great wine moves people into action, but specifically a dust-covered bottle of Baga, found in the garage of a local farmer during a bit of vineyard negotiation propelled Nuno from curiosity into perpetual motion. Despite the farmer not recalling the exact age, it was clearly old enough to be forgotten, made for household consumption and uncorked for some time already.... and yet it sang as if it was young and well kept in a pristine cellar. He thought then, if the grape could be this good, this old, without human care, then the vines that made it must be super stuff. And so the hunt began....

Mira do Ó
Mira do Ó wines seek to attain perfect sense of balance with the utmost respect for nature. At its core is the hunt for perfect grapes, found in various locations where the forgotten clones are hidden in the cool climate fo the Dão and a tiny sub-zone called Bucelas.. Encruzado and Arinto share the spotlight. Winemaking takes place in a small stone cellar in the middle of the vineyard with minimal intervention highlighting the grapes and special terroir. The tinto vines grow Jaen, Alfroscheiro, Touriga Nacional. The individual wines are named in reference to the vison and observation of nature: the Seer & the Druid

In the Dão region, the vineyards are located in São João de Lourosa, between Viseu and Silgueiros. It is a plateau at 500 meters of altitude on the right bank of the Dão River, with Serra do Caramulo to the northwest and Serra da Estrela to the southeast as the main landscape and climatic influences. Here the bed rock is granite as in most of the region but with a great richness of clay that allows a great balance of the vineyards, especially in the drier years and also to get wines with a richer texture and depth.

In Bucelas, just 20 km north of Lisbon, the vineyards are located in the area of Freixial and have a very particular climate strong Atlantic influence but protected within the valley. The soils are clay-limestone, here one can only speak of white wine and the variety that rules is Arinto, one of the most planted in Portugal but that has its birthplace here as well as its maximum potential.

As a viticulturist, Nuno is in constant search for balance between the soil, the climate, and the vines. Winemaking minimalist in terms of intervention but quite differentiated and adapted to each of the different vineyards, that is, the different parcels also have a different approach in the winery in order to better reveal what he believes to be its purest expression.

The viniculture is widely varied in technique, all according to the best expression of varietal, vintage and place. In other words, no set recipe leaving room to create pleasure. At the minimum however, grapes are hand picked and sorted. fermentations occur naturally. There is always a delicate hand in extraction and oak barrels are used only to enhance, not overwhelm, the natural beauty of the fruit.