In the past, the Bastardo grape was particularly popular for the production of Port wines. This was due to the grape's high sugar and alcohol content, which are necessary for this particular type of wine.

But, as so often happens throughout history, wine drinkers' preferences and tastes evolved. This resulted in many vineyards where the Bastardo grape grew being cleared to make room for other grape varieties that were more popular at the time.

The wine presents a pale cherry-red color. Its aromas captivate with a wonderful sweetness that highlights warm herbs and cherries. It is pure and elegant, with a hint of leaf. On the palate, it is soft, warm, and fruitily sweet. Light and extremely elegant, it contains beautiful notes of cherries and herbs, as well as subtle tannins. A truly beautiful wine.

But there is still hope for lovers of this special grape. Rita, a winemaker, fortunately inherited a piece of land—more precisely, 5 hectares—on which her grandfather had planted Bastardo grapes in the Douro highlands of Portugal half a century ago.

Rita follows a natural winemaking process and produces the wine in so-called lagares—traditional stone wine presses—with a very small addition of sulfur. This natural process results in a wine of vibrant color and intense aroma and flavor that highlights the characteristic features of the Bastardo grape.

It is worth noting that the name Bastardo is also used synonymously for the Trousseau grape variety. Despite the similarity in names, however, the taste of the Bastardo from the Douro differs significantly from that of the variety from the Jura region in France. Both represent their unique regions and express the distinctive characteristics of their terroir.

It grows on 50-year-old vines at Quinta Chão do Pereiro, which Rita's grandfather planted there, and only 5,000 bottles of this vintage exist worldwide!

Young Portuguese winemakers have now rediscovered this grape—much to our delight! This 100% Bastardo from Conceito delights with its warm herbal and cherry notes and is a very elegant, light wine with subtle tannins.

By the way, Bastardo also has a brother: the Legítimo!