Alice Tavares of Quinta de Chocapalha

Alice Tavares of Quinta de Chocapalha

Portugal offers so much joie de vivre: super friendly locals, a fantastic climate and delicious cuisine with a starring role for Cod or Bacalhau. This also appealed to Swiss Alice Gemperle. She emigrated to Portugal, married Paulo Tavares Da Silva and with him bought Quinto de Chocopalha, one of the most welcoming quintas ever. Alice Tavares is a woman of taste. - CHARLOTTE VAN ZUMMEREN

Portugal is hugely popular among Dutch people, and not just because well-known (Louis van Gaal) and unknown Dutchmen (your neighbour perhaps) have second homes there. It is a country with plenty of coast and sea, with a warm interior and a diversity of landscapes, architecture and cities. Besides being a popular travel destination, Portugal is also a wine-producing country, and no small one at that.

What's hot: Portugal has some 225 thousand hectares of vineyards. That is much less than France and Italy, but more than double what Germany has. Portugal is best known for port, but there are 13 other key players, including the beloved Douro, Minho and Alentejo. And Lisbon, of course, because wine is also made on the coast. Quinta de Chocapalha is a veritable coastal winery. WINElife spoke - remotely, we are still living in the corona era - to our Woman with Taste Alice Tavares. Luckily, there's Zoom!

Energetic

Quinta de Chocapalha is a Portuguese family-owned winery with a touch of Confoederatio Helvetica. And that touch comes from our Woman with Taste. She emigrated to Switzerland to marry Paulo Tavares da Silva. In the 1980s, Alice and her husband bought the quinta and invested heavily in the vineyards and winery. Alice: 'This was a case of looking through it, because the quinta had suffered a dormant existence for years. It had been neglected.' Alice and Paulo set to work energetically, she says. 'The vineyards were not in good shape. Actually downright bad. We replanted 45 hectares with local grape varieties.'

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