Serradinha Rosado

Profile & Story

Antonio Marques da Cruz runs Quinta da Serradinha, a small family estate in an isolated village outside Leiria whose name means little mountain. Wine has been made by the Cruz family for many generations, but Antonio is the first to give it his whole time, taking his first autonomous vintage in 2008. The oldest vines were planted by his grandfather between 1952 and 1967 and the youngest by his father in the 1990s; the land has been worked organically since 1978 and was certified in 1994, making it the first viticultural estate in Portugal to hold organic certification. Everything is destemmed and foot-trodden, there is no temperature control, and sulphur is usually added only at bottling. The rose is a roughly even split of Castelao and Touriga Nacional, direct-pressed and left eight months on its primary lees at about 11.5% alcohol. A small wooden ladybird is glued to every cork.