Monte da Casteleja

Portugal

Algarve

Lagos

Guillaume Leroux

XPTO factor: At Monte da Casteleja our goal is to produce high quality organic wines, with traditional Portuguese grape varieties.

Guillaume inherited this property from his maternal grandfather, when he was only 18 years old, but he only settled here much later. His grandfather was born in Sagres and a highly regarded industrialist in the fishing area and bought this farm in 1952. He never imagined that his grandson would plant vines and produce wine here. Nor did he ever imagine the tourism boom that this region would experience and the priority that would be given to the real estate sector, to the detriment of agricultural production.

Guillaume is the son of an Algarve mother and a French father and it was the latter who introduced him to the magic of wine, showing him how to taste and care for a wine and leading him to discover the subtleties that differentiate the various terroirs. He decided to study agriculture in France and after a brief stint in the farming world, there was no doubt about his true passion: the complexity of the world of wine.

He worked for 5 years in the Douro and got to know the art and craftsmanship of the great centuries-old houses in depth, until he found the strength to venture, in 1999, on a project in his own name and far to the south, where the wineries were not well known. He got to work. He recovered the abandoned ruin, planted 3 ha of vines. The clay-limestone soil proved to be very conducive to plant growth. And summer water shortages are overcome by using shorter intervals between plants and deeper roots.

In 2008, another concern pushed him towards a new change: in his growing dedication to a rich soil and healthy plants, the conventional production method no longer satisfied him. The bet shifted to organic certification.
His wines are marked by a very personal nature. After long macerations, they gain a good body, elegant and full of fruit.

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