With a history spanning over 200 years, Quinta Nova de Nossa Senhora do Carmo occupies over 120 ha of land, and has been listed since the first demarcation of the Douro wine region, in 1756, during the Pombaline era.
The original wine cellar that dates back to 1764 and the 19th century manor house with a chapel (1795) are harmoniously integrated into one of the estate's hills.
Owned by the Portuguese Royal Family until 1725, it became a “new estate” when two estates were merged. Several Portuguese families lived in the estate in the 18th and 19th centuries, during an important period in the agriculture of the Douro, and gave life to the vineyards and wine, fruit orchards, water mills built along the stream that runs through the estate and the old olive grove.
In the 17th century, a small chapel was built on the bank of the Douro river, in the Quinta Nova estate to protect the men who sailed in rabelo boats along a particularly treacherous zone of the Douro river. During their journey, when in difficulty or even risking death, the boatmen made promises to their patron saint, in return for safe passage. At their request a granite stone statue of Nossa Senhora do Carmo (Our Lady of Mount Carmel) was built, bearing the scapular of the Carmelite Order. Carefully preserved over the years, the statue is still kept today in the small chapel of Quinta Nova de Nossa Senhora do Carmo, whose name derives from the devotion of the rabelo boatsmen.
Since 1999 the estate’s history has been intensely lived by the Amorim family.
Now in its fourth generation, the Amorim family has been linked to the wine trade since 1870, through its first trading activity - producing cork stoppers for the Port Wine Cellars, in Vila Nova de Gaia. It is now one of the most prominent family groups in Portugal, and operates in several countries of the world, in different business sectors.
