THE BEGINING
Aveleda’s history is paced by the rhythm of Nature and the work of its people. Although the estate’s existence dates from a long time ago, historic documents and the Chapel annexed to the main house date from the 17th Century. It has always been an agricultural exploitation and it has kept its essence ever since, always belonging to the Guedes family. By the end of the 19th Century, Manoel Pedro Guedes da Silva da Fonseca – Mayor of Penafiel and Deputy to the Parliament – decided to leave the monotonous life in Lisbon and moved to his Quinta da Aveleda. This man was renowned for his bravery and vision and decided to redirect the estate’s production focusing on winemaking. For that, he defied the archaic habits of the region and replanted all the existing vines using the Cordon method and dividing each parcel by grape variety. Besides this, he built a huge and modern winery for that time, with the capacity of over 300 barrels.
Between 1870 and 1880, the devastating disease of phylloxera destroyed an important amount of the vineyard and he responded to that by adopting the phylloxera-resistant rootstocks and adapting each variety after the study of the topography and climate on each parcel. These measures were considered very advandced for that time and some articles say that the train that crosses the estate would slow down to see what the “fool” from Aveleda was doing.
Every year, the vines gave better and better grapes, and the owner of Quinta da Aveleda started buying more land for his property. He would invest every year important amounts in order to produce better wines that he sold all over the country. All these efforts were recognized by the attribution of several prizes nationally and internationally. As an example, the wines from Quinta da Aveleda won the Gold medal at the Berlin exhibition (1888), in Paris (1889) and later in Seville (1929).
His two sons. Fernando and Manuel enhanced their father’s work as wine producers. At the time, the wine would be sold by barrel and it was very hard to sell all that quantity, especially during World War I. Every time a barrel was sold, people would celebrate it!
The second son of Fernando Guedes – Roberto – started helping his father in running the business right after completing the military duty. He had two brothers and four sisters. In 1946, they decided to gather forces and created a company to run and develop the business, each of them having equal shares of it. Simultaneously, 1946 was also the year where the sales rose significantly to Brazil and other parts of the world. All this allowed the construction and enlargement of the facilities at Quinta da Aveleda. Two brothers - Roberto and Fernando van Zeller Guedes – worked and directed the company with passion and devotion during this period.
