Collection: Gerações de Xisto

Is a project, not a brand, but a concept born from the fusion of two projects: Chousas Nostras and Vales Dona Amélia, created by the strong will of young descendants of two families from Trás-os-Montes (Sousa Grandão Family and Lobão Family), passionate about their land and determined to preserve the family's rural heritage and traditions inherited from generations.

They are the protagonists, Frederico Lobão and Paulo Grandão. Before the merger, the first was dedicated to olive oil and the second to wine, but they always made everything with each other's raw material.

It is in the remote Douro Superior, in the municipality of Vila Nova de Foz Coa, where the promoters of Gerações do Xisto have roots, grew up, studied and where they live, in these lands marked by the hardness of the shale and at the same time the largest open-air museum of rock art free, now a World Heritage Site.

The centuries-old olive groves and vineyards of venerable age that make up the essence of the project, are spread across these inhospitable lands right in the middle of the tectonic fault of Vilariça and at the end of the Iberian Meseta, a natural heritage that exalts the full symbiosis between Man and the Biosphere. And this is a land of resilience and resistance.

The isolation and harsh conditions in a place that has a temperature range of around 50ºC from summer to winter and where very little rain is a blessing of inestimable value for these people who have always known how to live with these circumstances.

Despite the distance, the small achievements give encouragement and courage to move forward. The harshness of the natural conditions and the altitudes ranging from 200 meters to almost 500 meters and which form a wide variety of micro-climates, give the raw material a lot of complexity, which translates into a unique potential for the creation of wines with profiles that are as distinct as they are interesting.

Gerações do Xisto explores around 16 hectares of centenary olive groves, partly occupying what was once a worked mortório and 40 hectares of vineyards in plots scattered throughout the region. The oldest vineyard they have is from 1987, a time when everything is still planted mixed. There are also some phylloxera-surviving vines living alongside the olive grove that could, in the future, give rise to something special, as testing and experimentation are always in the spotlight.

In the red varieties, they favor Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, Tinto Cão and Sousão, in the reds, for their potential for structuring, balance and freshness, which makes the wines interesting and complex. Among the white varieties, Códega do Larinho, Rabigato and Arinto stand out, which give the wines freshness, aromatic complexity and a good balance between alcohol and acidity.

Each wine is a combination of multiple parcels. From different altitudes, from different soils and from different varieties. And it is the finished wine, which best reflects all the effort and dedication put into making it, summing up in the glass the accidents and occurrences experienced each year.

With so much cultural and natural heritage, its dissemination and sharing could not be left out, leading to the creation of the Gerações de Xisto Experience Program, which offers wine and olive oil tastings, provides the discovery and exploration of the region and its heritage in 4x4 vehicles and , for those who are good eaters, there is no shortage of a picnic prepared by a professional chef.

Schist Generations is also an appeal to the generations that resist and that do everything to resist in this inland land. More than a brand, a concept because it is a concept that includes young people trying to do something for themselves.