Collection: Quinta do Sobral de Santar

Begun with sacrifice in 1995 by Nelson Simões. He arrived in Santar with a vision and very little else, annexed land year by year, reconstructed abandoned vineyards, and by 2000 had built his winery inside a granite hillside using tunnels and chambers excavated from rock. The cellars are among the Dão's most dramatic.

Today winemaker Patrícia Santos oversees 15 hectares of vines on the granite plateau at 388 metres. The range spans approachable estate wines through to rare single-varietal expressions of Encruzado and Malvasia Fina in forms nearly impossible to find outside Portugal.

The estate's most extraordinary chapter began when granddaughter Maria discovered her grandfather's 50-year-old vineyard register after his death, within it, varieties that had since vanished from the Dão. That discovery became the Coleção Mimi do Avô.