Caminhos Cruzados, S.A
About Us
Located in Vilar Seco, municipality of Nelas, in the district of Viseu, Quinta da Teixuga is a 30-hectare property.
Located in the heart of the Dão Region, it is surrounded by mountainous massifs, such as Serra da Estrela and Caramulo. This location allows excellent thermal amplitudes for a good ripening of the grapes, so that their slow ripening produces wines with rich aromas and good acidity.
In the "Teixuga" vineyard plots, some with an average age of 50, we can find the best grape varieties in the Dão region, reds, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Jaen, Alfrocheiro; white, Malvasia-Fina, Encruzado and Bical.
It is at Quinta da Teixuga that we inaugurated the new modern winery in 2017, the result of a bold and unrivaled work with the capacity to vinify 400,000 liters. The Dão region acquires the joviality that has long been desired, and the Caminhos Cruzados project is affectionately nicknamed “O Novo Dão?”, Due to its renaissance under a modern scope.
Caminhos Cruzados is the initiative and will of the Santos family, born in Nelas, determined to return to its origins to invest in an ancient passion, dão wine. The connection to wine is born in the older generations but was passed on to the young Lígia and Francisca who, from an early age, made the harvests in family and friends, gathering everyone in a small shop at home, giving rise to a homemade wine.
It is in 2012 that Paulo Santos decides to give life to this tradition and creates a family business, run by Lígia Santos that exchanges Lisbon and law for wine and head to Nelas to direct the project's destinations. Its wines are made from grapes of own production and selected producers, recognized for their quality and excellence of grape varieties, all in the Dão region.
The company's philosophy is based on the production of quality wines, with a strand of tradition allied to modernism and constant differentiation that the market demands, it is in this context that the wines of Caminhos Cruzados emerge as "The New Dão".
The name comes from the familiar thought that life is not always made by straight paths and that, on the contrary, there are more atypical paths that lead us to incredible places. The motto is that every time two paths intersect, something fantastic can happen, as is currently the case with family members, with different formations and experiences, whose paths intersect in the project.
The company (vineyards and winery) is located in the Dão area, more specifically in Nelas. In 2017, the new Winery was inaugurated, with bold architecture and emerging from the vineyards of Quinta da Teixuga. The Winery is inspired by the company logo, two lines that intersect and are perfectly integrated into the environment. It is conscious in aesthetics and also in sustainability and allows the practice of Winetourism.
Recently, Caminhos Cruzados joined the Terras e Terroir Group, owned by businessmen Paulo Pereira and couple Maria do Céu Gonçalves and Álvaro Lopes, which also includes The Duriense Quinta da Pacheca and Quinta do Barrilário, in Armamar.
The company (vineyards and winery) is located in the Dão area, in the Beira Alta region, in the north of Portugal, more specifically in Nelas. The Dão region is protected from the winds by the mountains of Caramulo, Montemuro, Buçaco and Estrela, thus bringing together excellent geographical conditions for wine production.
The vineyards in this region are located between 400 and 700 meters in altitude, in shallow plateaus of shallow and granitic soils, where pine forests abound, producing full-bodied wines with a high aging capacity. They have a wide variety of grape varieties, including Touriga Nacional, Alfrocheiro, Jaen and Tinta Roriz (in red varieties) and Encruzado, Bical, Cercial, Malvasia Fina and Verdelho (white varieties).
Quinta da Teixuga is a 42-hectare property, where the vineyards surround the imposing Adega.
In the vineyard plots of “Teixuga ?, some with an average age of 50 years, we can find the best grape varieties in the Dão region, among them Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Jaen, Alfrocheiro (in red varieties); Malvasia-Fina, Encruzado and Bical (in white varieties).
At Quinta da Teixuga there is a project to recover old vineyards with the main objective of restoring the grape variety's liveliness and, thus, keeping a unique heritage alive. In parallel, the project for planting new vines is based on new varieties which, in balance with the emblematic grape varieties of Dão, are the material for exceptional wine compositions.
In 2019, the process of converting a vineyard with about 1ha began, where 4200 Touriga Nacional grape vines are planted, to a biological vineyard. This process will take about 3 years.
