The portuguese inventor

The first morning there was excitement in the air as Mario was keen for us to see his new invention for the mass turning of 600 bottles of wine and we were equally interested to see how this would be done.

 

Mario has created a beautiful sculpture like piece of equipment which enables him to turn a cage of 600 bottles in one go rather than having to pick each bottle up individually to turn.

We were not as quite as confident as Mario and thought perhaps experimenting with 600 bottles initially might be a little precipitous, but we needn’t have worried as everything worked perfectly.

Mario explained how he is always thinking of ways which might improve the wine or provide an interesting story for those who buy and drink Negreiros wine.  The marketing of wine from a small producer needs to be innovative and the stories Mario relates through blogs, pictures and video invite the wine drinker to take that initial taste. 

http://negreiros-vinho.blogspot.com

Later in the day we learnt about  Mario’s impending trial of storing bottles under water to maintain a constant temperature. In order to do this the corks in all the wine bottles need to be sealed to protect them from the water.  This is done by dipping the neck of the bottle into wax and Mario encouraged us to take part in the dipping process.

It will be great to taste this wine in years to come and compare the flavour - who knows it could be the very bottles we sealed.