The Adega Cooperativa de Penalva do Castelo sets the standard for Dão wines. It currently has around 1000 members, annually receives grapes from more than 1200 ha of vineyards, produces an average of ten million liters of wine and has the most modern technology for vinification, aging and bottling of wines.
Dão is a land of wine, history and contrasts. Across the rugged terrain, where a great mountain lurks on the horizon, you can see a terrace full of vines and cultivated flat land. The rivers and streams run with cold, clear waters that roll more with stone than sand. The air is pure and smells like pine. Dão knows how to welcome people from outside. The rugged terrain, the smallholdings and the exuberant vegetation, contribute to the almost anonymity of the vineyard in the landscape. And yet the vines are there, in numbers exceeding 75 million strains. The many traces of Roman presence testify to the millenary tradition of wine production in the region as do the strong establishment of religious orders of the Middle Ages. References to vineyards and wine in the charters of almost all municipalities, particularly in the municipality of Penalva do Castelo, attest to their great social, economic and religious importance to the region, throughout history. This is the portrait of the first demarcated region of wines to be regulated in Portugal, in 1910.
