Hi there! I am Joseph.
I have been an immigrant / expat living in central Portugal along with my beautiful girlfriend Mariana for eight years now.
Together Mariana, my father Clinton and myself, would like to show you a bit of the daily goings on around our Portuguese farm / homestead / smallholding and all of the work we are doing whilst renovating, starting building projects, working with our livestock, DIY and trying to grow our little families own food!
In this episode we welcome you to join us in late summertime as we go about our daily goings on around our farm and the local surroundings, here in central Portugal.
We begin this week at the very front of our farmhouse here in Fundao. It is late September, and we need to harvest our grapes, Mariana and I start by harvesting the grapes on our pergola at the front of the house, my lovely neighbour turns up to help and her and my father both head up to the vineyard, a true family vindima filled with lots of laughter and fun in the sun.
We jump straight into the work and throughout the morning we managed to pick enough grapes to fill our containers with 950ltrs worth of grapes, once crushed they of course have less air space between them, so this goes down a bit but regardless it was still plenty for our own supply of red wine. The rest will all go to the cooperativa.
We lift our crusher and destemmer on top of the dornas, primary fermenters, and turn her on. We throw grapes in, and she crushed them down and removes the stems. The grapes will do 70% of their fermentation here in these primary fermenters and the other 30% will be done in the stainless-steel secondary fermenters that can be seen in the background.
After all that hard work Mariana and I scrub up and head to Sortelha, a medieval castle town, because there is a medieval festival. We were of course very tired from all the work during the day but we still had enough energy to enjoy ourselves for the night. It was a beautiful festival with lots of food, drink, dancing and traditional music.
The next day I show you the progress of the wine, I begin by punching the cap, which is a process in where the seeds and skins of the grapes float to the surface during the fermentation, they will continuously do this and stop the wine from breathing properly, ending fermentation, so it is very necessary to keep punching this cap down numerous times daily. This also adds to the flavour and depth of the wine as the tannins and flavours are inside the skins and seeds still.
I hope you enjoyed the episode and I hope you all have an amazing week ahead.
If anyone has any questions about wine making in the traditional Portuguese way, please ask away!
Thank you, see you in the next one!
See our journey to self-sufficiency / permaculture / organic farming living in Portugal, trying to produce as much of our own food planting vegetables, growing fruit trees as well as looking after all our animals, such as our chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks, quail, rabbits and sheep – Shortly pigs too!
– Growing vegetables, raising meat and foraging on our cherry farm in Portugal’s Beira baixa, Fundão
Follow us on Instagram @farmerforfun
IF YOU ARE PORTUGUESE OR TRYING TO LEARN PORTUGUESE PERHAPS CONSIDER TURNING ON SUBTITLES FOR THIS VIDEO, MARIANA & I HAVE CREATED SUBTITLES IN PORTUGUESE, MAYBE THEY MIGHT COME IN HANDY WITH LEARNING A WORD OR TWO! CLICK THE ‘CLOSED CAPTIONS’ BUTTON ON THE VIDEO AND THE SUBTITLE OPTIONS WILL APPEAR.
PLEASE HELP US TO CONTINUE CREATING THIS CONTENT BY CONTRIBUTING TO US ON PATREON
Enjoyed watching. Thank you, Joseph and Mariana 😉
Hi Joseph, fantastic video!
What type of grapes are you using? are they native? are you making any fortified wine? do you mature the wine?
keep up the good work!
Another great video Joseph. I wish our vines looked as healthy as yours,we have a lot of work to do over the coming months. Best wishes to you and your family. We always look forward to your videos on a Saturday.
Thanks for your vid 😇💟💟💟 Love you all guys.
Hi you too I love the video this week love the horses and grapes oh my word they're so big a beautiful grapes I saw you pick up that unicorn and I heart drop that I couldn't send the gift because it was a little unicorn that lit up and blinked but I'm glad she loves unicorns I think every little girl does and I love watching make wine I wish I could make my own you guys have a great great week and hug that little baby for me
I am so looking forward to the continued story of winemaking. Wishing you an even better than anticipated grape harvest!
Oi Olá Joseph e Mariana. Como você está? Eu realmente gosto de seus vídeos são muito interessantes. Um ótimo exposição. Parabéns. Obrigado. Deuste abençoe.
Thank you Mariana and Joseph for a very informative video. It is so interesting to hear about the wine making process. I try to make apple cider and perhaps also Perry for the first time. Take care and all the best to you.
Wow, what a beautiful village and so picturesque. I imagine it's medieval. I bet property is not cheap there. I love how you and Mariana work together, such a great relationship and team.
Truly a paradise
Hey there Joseph & the gang! You are truly an embassador for portuguese culture! May I suggest one thing? I really enjoy those tours around festivities and it would be cool, specially for the ones not familiar with it , if you`d show the dates those festivities occur so people could plan a visit next time. I would love to plan a few trips to some of them but they are so many and in different periods that is hard to know when they happen. 🙂
The sunset over the horizons shown twice in the video were absolutely stunning. 😍 Perfect for water coloring. One question about the grapes: could they be used to make grape juice as well? Just wondering. Thanks for sharing.
What a super video this week Joseph. So interesting and such great content too! I’m so pleased your grape harvest is such a successful one this year, hopefully it will make up for the poor Cherry season. Loved seeing the fermentation process, tell Mariana I was looking forward to her jumping in the barrel and treading by foot haha 😆 Loved the festival too. Love to all😘
How much approximately does a farm like this cost?
🙂
Stupid question… do you grind up stems and seeds?I didn't see any de-stemming and seeds well…they likely add flavor….how long does it take to harvest all your grapes?..thanks for taking us along. 👨🌾🚜👨🌾😍
Another lovely little slice of the Portuguese life 🙂 Thank you
Awesome Video Joseph !
Please activate subtitles in Portuguese.
Hello, so beautiful experience, thank you so much for sharing.
What a busy happy life you have.💜
Fabulous video. Such a variety of different content. So glad you have a bumper grape harvest. Looking forward to following the wine making in future videos. I bet Chloe was pleased with the unicorn. 😄👍🍇xx
Great video, look forward to the wine tasting 🍷 🍇
Looking forward to the wine tasting Joseph 😋😋
The quality of your videos has improved over time. What camera are you using now mate ?
'You're not pregnant today!' Well, there's a scoop for us!
what a great video Joseph and Mariana, how blessed you are with so many grapes this year, would love to taste the wine when its ready, greetings from Holland
Bom dia Joseph and Mariana. It appears that this grape harvest may make up for the disappointing cherry harvest.
So looking forward to my own probably next year although mine will surely be much less than yours. What an interesting process it goes through and it’s obvious lots of work is involved.
Hoping for the “good news” before the end of the year as I’m already making plans.
Mariana certainly had her eyes on the beautiful horses and I wonder if deep down the unicorn is partly for her and Chloe both.😄
See you November or December. 😘🤗
Do you use the leaves at all? We make Greek Dolmatha with them.