Developing collaborations with friends and those she admires in the wine sector is one of her great passions!
There is no one in Susana’s family connected to wine but Susana Esteban was born in Galicia, in the Rias Baixas region, Alvarinho area, which may have triggered her taste for wine. At 18 years old, when she didn´t know what to do in the future, she signs up for several wine tastings and enjoys it. She decides she wants to be a winemaker, when in fact she doesn’t really know what that means. She graduated in Chemical Engineering and completed a Master’s degree in Viticulture and Enology for two years in Rioja. It was on the final Master’s degree trip, in 1995, that she fell in love with Douro Valley.
At that time she only knew Port Wine but Douro wines are a whole world that she is interested in discovering. She does an internship at Sandeman, which she considers a unique experience as she has the privilege of join the wine taster for a month. After that, a month of harvest in Douro and the certainty that she had to do something here was increasingly clear. Send several CVs, but nothing happens. She returns to Spain and works as a technical director in an agrochemical products distribution company. When she sees an advertisement in the newspaper asking for a production director for Quinta do Côtto she applies and is selected. This is where the great adventure begins, the Douro at the time had nothing to do with the Douro of today, the first steps were taken in exports.
Susana stays at Quinta do Côtto for three years and is invited to Quinta do Crasto where she stays for another five years. She moves to Lisbon and the advisory services in Alentejo begin to be part of her days. In fact she still works with some of these wineries nowadays. It is in Alto Alentejo that she begins producing her wines, after searching for the best vineyards. It is no coincidence that its top wine is called PROCURA, word in Portuguese that means “search”. It is in Alentejo that she will continue making her wines, because it is here that she finds the terroir that she is most passionate about.
She was the first woman to receive the “Winemaker of the Year” award in 2011 and in 2022 she was named “Producer of the Year”. National and international critics do not spare praise for its wines, which helped her to win a large number of important awards.
Old vines, without irrigation, in Alentejo, preferably in the Serra de São Mamede – this is Susana Esteban’s starting point. Susana exhaustively searches the best old vines, which are almost perfect so there is no need a lot of intervention in the winemaking process. She is a staunch defender of “wine that is made in the vineyard and not in the winery”. This is what drives her: the incessant search of the best old vineyards, without water and with portuguese grape varieties, planted at altitude, in soils of granite and shale and with wide temperature ranges. It is this combination of factors that provide slow maturation, essential in her wines.
The identification of grape varieties is not the most important thing for Susana Esteban, but their quality.
She cannot guarantee but she believes that in white wines there is the following grape varieties: Arinto, Roupeiro, Viozinho and Fernão Pires.
The red varieties include: Trincadeira, Rufete, Grand Noir, Alicante Bouschet and Aragonez.
Explore the full wine portfolio and discover the passion and excellence that define each bottle.