check out an interview with an award-winning Portuguese winemaker

Curitiba was pleased to receive, once again, a great wine professional, the dynamic Portuguese oenologist Filipa Pato. At the end of March, Filipa Pato participated in events in the capital of Paraná at the invitation of the importer Porto a Porto, promoting its wines and, mainly, its vision of the production method focused on organic and biodynamic wines.

Born in Bairrada, Portugal, Filipa is the daughter of also renowned winemaker Luis Pato. The family has been producing wines for several generations and, even with all this family baggage, it has made its own way. She traveled the world. She met other producers. She studied in France, Australia and was also in South America, in Argentina, adding knowledge and experience.

It was more than 20 years of work together with her husband, the Belgian William Wouters. Now, together, they reap the fruits of that dedication. Filipa Pato labels are sold in 50 countries and commented on New York Timesat Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, Forbes International and other renowned bodies in the world of wine.

In an exclusive interview with Good Gourmet, Filipa Pato told us a little about her career and her work with biodynamic wines. Check out!

Several generations of his family have already worked with wine. How has that influenced your career?

I have contact with the vineyards from an early age, I loved walking in nature, I had a passion for walking in the countryside and realizing all the biodiversity that exists in Bairrada. The fact that I had contact from an early age had a decisive influence on my profession, whether with my grandparents or my parents, but I tried to do everything with my own vision, with my own personal stamp. I started my project in 2001, when I was 25 years old. I started very young, but I took a risk, there were many old vines being abandoned in fantastic places and I thought they were great opportunities to start my own path and I started there, discovering amazing centuries-old Baga (grape) vines.

What was it like to walk your path having the renowned winemaker Luís Pato as your father? What was the moment you started to follow in your own footsteps?

It was good to have contact with my family, but the fact of having found these old vines that I mentioned earlier was a challenge for me to become independent, it was an opportunity to develop myself and a great international success, mainly in the American, English and in Brazil too. That’s when I started my independent path.

I never had the same importers as my father, for example, because it was in fact a way for me to become independent and have my own business. It was great to look back and create a brand together with my husband because we work, we invest together and wine is our family, our passion. We are having great results, on a fantastic path that fills us with pride.

You have an outstanding resume. He studied in France, Australia, Argentina, his wines were commented on in the New York Times, Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate, Forbes International, he has several awards. What does all this mean to you?

It is a great source of pride and the result of a lot of work. This didn’t come out of nowhere, it was a 20-year work together with my husband Willian, there were many trips, a lot of dedication to the vineyards. When we are in Bairrada, we are obsessed with work and we work a lot towards the evolution of the ecosystem, we work with many animals, we work with many plants in the region, we investigate a lot all these points that make us evolve.

And this communication of the evolution that we are doing is also reflected in the wine, we have achieved a lot of positive communication that fills us with pride, whether English or American – which then reverberates in the search for other markets that arise. Nowadays we are no longer at wine fairs, customers come looking for us and that is super incredible.

The new customers that appear have to wait until January to be added to the reserve list, because our production is limited and it has to be divided between everyone. In addition, we always want to give value to those who have invested in our work since the beginning, customers who have supported us since the beginning. It is also important to highlight that we have wines in more than 50 countries.

Is your “Authentic Wines Without Makeup” project directly linked to the production of organic and biodynamic wines?

Yes. Biodynamic wines are one step ahead of organic wines. A biodynamic vineyard has to be certified as organic and then have another two years of transition, that is, a total of five years of transition. This allows for a fantastic energizing of the soils, which become more alive, with more plants. The result is livelier vines. But, of course, more investments are needed.

Bairrada is not an easy region to set up biodynamic vineyards because it is very humid in the spring, but we did a lot of research and managed to have a transition that the vine appreciates. We are certified by Demeter [certificação destinada a produtos agrícolas biodinâmicos] and only two producers in Portugal have this certification, we are also part of the Renaissance-des-Appellations [Associação de Agricultura Biodinâmica].

It was hard work, in addition to a lot of bureaucracy. But that’s what we want to offer our customers, authentic wines, without make-up, that faithfully reflect their origin, with minimal intervention and focusing only on traditional Bairrada grape varieties.

You define yourself as ‘Baga-Terrorist’. What does this term mean?

He is a lover of the Baga grape/variety, he is someone who understands about it, Baga is originally from Bairrada in Portugal. The Baga grape was a little abandoned in the region and my family and I disagree with this abandonment, including my father who has always been a great promoter of Baga and, therefore, we focused on this grape.

I only use Baga and we believe that by focusing on it we can improve our knowledge of this grape. It adapts completely to the Bairrada region, it has been there for many centuries, long before phylloxera, and has adapted to the climate. Those of us who work with biodynamic wines want varieties that are adapted to that place, like the berry, and that is why we are berry-terrorists.

As a woman, did you have difficulties or any type of prejudice during your journey in the world of wine?

I didn’t focus on the Portuguese market. If I had done that from the beginning, then yes, perhaps, I would have had difficulties. But when I started making wines, my challenge was to sell outside Bairrada, it was a way to get out of there in winter, I didn’t like to be there in this season, it’s a very humid and cold region; for me it was important to travel, to know the world, other producers, other realities. It was super important for me to be able to export wines. When you export, you don’t feel that machismo that you have in Portugal. Now there is less, but when I started, more than 20 years ago, there was machismo. Nowadays I notice that the market is more open to women, I think this generation has created a very strong female wave. I remember that my grandmother and my mother were always at the back, it was always the men in front, but they were important too, only they were always behind. In a winery, it is important to have both the male and female sides, valuing both sides, maintaining respect between both is very important and creating professional evolution. I don’t like to make wines alone, I don’t like it to become a monologue, my husband and I are always in contact, thinking, discussing ideas, this combines very well, it creates more evolution.

Bairrada is famous for producing excellent quality sparkling wines, you even have them in your portfolio, but you don’t like the term “sparkling wines”. Why?

Bairrada is such a rich region, a fantastic microclimate, incredible vineyards, limestone soil, with an Atlantic maritime influence, with such great potential to make high quality sparkling wines that it shouldn’t be called sparkling wine. It is a traditional method, we work with local grape varieties, it would make perfect sense to use a name proper to the region, a name that characterizes the Bairrada region. We are increasingly trying to influence other producers and the Bairrada Commission to create a name in common with everyone that really values ​​Bairrada’s traditional methods even more. I refuse to say ‘sparkling wine’, there are several suggestions for names of rivers, mountains in the region, what I think is that we should value it more and think of a proper name that identifies Bairrada.

The stopper used in Filipa Pato labels is natural organic. What is the advantage of this material?

The cork stopper can bring risks because of the TCA [substância química liberada pelas rolhas atacadas por alguns fungos] and a large part of the wineries started to use other sealing systems such as screw cap, microgranules, plastic and other options in order to avoid these problems. But when it comes to a wine that is going to evolve, the ideal is really the cork, there is still no other alternative to a good cork.

So we bet on the knowledge of having an efficient stopper and found producers of certified natural cork stoppers, with natural color and from organic forests. It is a stopper that will be able to be in contact with wine for 20, 30 years easily. The berry is a variety that has a unique aging capacity in Portugal, one more reason to invest in a good cork stopper, we know when we work in biodynamics that it is important to have a cork stopper that does not transmit residues, that there is no contamination and does not harm the evolution of wine, that’s why we chose this type of natural stopper.

What characteristics can we find in Filipa Pato wines from the terroir of Bairrada?

It is a specific terroir with different wines, it has a touch of the Atlantic breeze, the whites always bring a lot of salinity, freshness and at the same time creaminess, because of the clayey-limestone soils, this gives a very special touch to white wines.

Berry’s adaptation to red wines in each region is incredible, it brings notes of plum, cherry, there is a lot of forest around the vineyards, with pine trees, olive trees, which in the background are important and influence this ecosystem. We preserve this entire ecosystem because we consider it crucial to maintain a bond, we want to make a wine with identity, not for all consumers. It’s a wine with great character, it’s a niche market and that’s important in the world of wine, that they have labels with strong identities, otherwise we all start drinking the same wines and it wouldn’t be fun. It is also important for us to open the bottle, feel it and say: this is Bairrada berry!

Your wines have been sold in Brazil since 2006. How is your relationship with the country?

It is a very special country for me, Brazilians know our wines, they visit us in Portugal. We’ve been in Brazil since 2006 and it was here that my husband and I started dating, ‘Nossa’ wine comes from that period and from the Brazilian expression that expresses admiration and our passion for wine.