The wines of XXVI Talhas

XXVI Talhas is the project of winemaker Ricardo Santos and his childhood friend Daniel Parreira. They grew up together in the village of Vila Alva in Alentejo, where once there were more talhas - the large earthenware jars used to make wine - than there were people living there. This ancient culture has almost entirely disappeared, but thanks in part to Ricardo and Daniel, not completely. Interest in this special way of making wine is greater than it has been in decades.

Check out our 2 wines made by XXVI Talhas

Vila Alva once teemed with little cellars filled with talhas. The wine was collected from a dripping tap at the bottom of the large jar and drunk by locals, with friends who never paid for the wine but brought food along as 'payment'. This age-old way of winemaking fell out of favor after the Second World War - it's labor-intensive and hard to scale up. Making wine in huge stainless steel tanks is much easier and cheaper.

But with the disappearance of the talhas, a piece of Alentejo's culture disappeared too. That's precisely why Daniel Parreira decided to bring his grandfather's old adega, filled with 26 talhas, back into use. His grandfather was called 'Mestre Daniel', a carpenter and gifted winemaker with a spacious adega where wine was still made until the 1990s. Childhood friend and winemaker Ricardo Santos didn't hesitate for a moment to start this special project with Mestre's grandson Daniel. With success - every year they welcome large numbers of tourists who can get acquainted with an almost forgotten wine culture in their cellar.

Ricardo and Daniel's wines are sold under the name XXVI Talhas, at home and abroad. They make red, white and rosé. The red wines are remarkably light-footed and elegant. The white wines ferment with skins and stems in the talha and can therefore also be called 'orange'. The pink Palhete is made following old traditions by adding a bit of red wine to the white wine - in the old days it was the leftovers thrown together to still fill a talha.

For their wines they naturally also use the region's traditional grapes: Antão Vaz, Roupeiro and Perrum for the white wines, and Aragonez, Trincadeira and Tinta Grossa for the red. The wines of XXVI Talhas are without doubt among the best talha wines of Portugal. We currently have two wines from XXVI Talhas in our range. You can view all our wines from XXVI Talhas here.

If you want to know more about this winery, here you will find the link to the website of XXVI Talhas.