Quinta da Ribeira

Four generations on the terraces

When we first walked the property, the walls were sound and almost everything else had fallen in. The roof had collapsed over the old press room and a fig tree was growing through the kitchen floor. The Ferraz family had made wine on these terraces for four generations and wanted to live here again, not only work here.

New life inside an old shell

We rebuilt the roof in chestnut on its original lines and kept every stone that could be kept — more than eighty per cent of the original walls. A kitchen now sits where the wine press stood, the bedrooms open under the old beams, and the former stables became a guest wing for the buyers who arrive every harvest.

Modern comfort is there, but quietly. Underfloor heating runs beneath reclaimed clay tiles, and the deep window reveals were limewashed so the low winter sun fills the rooms instead of stopping at the glass.