PORTUGAL
preservation of Alentejo’s past and its reinvention for the future.
This 1,927-acre estate has been in Uva’s family for over two centuries. The former investment banker spent 12 years transforming the property into a working winery, farm and a boutique stay that opened in 2016. Pritzker Prize-winning Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto Moura is responsible for the classic design of the 40 rooms, suites and apartments, each decorated with Portuguese textiles and furnishings sold in the hotel gift shop.
The property feels like a living museum that honors the land and its agricultural past as well as Uva’s family. The spa, an outpost of Austrian skin-care guru Susanne Kaufmann’s eponymous wellness empire, once housed the 50 families who worked the farm estate. The shop, where guests can purchase estate-made wines, farm-fresh produce and designer artisan goods, including handmade reed bags by Toino Abel, was the old chicken coop. The farm-to-table restaurant was the former kennels.
Even the décor tells stories from the past. In the lobby, boxes of yellowed handwritten letters hang from the walls. “Everyone thinks they’re love letters, but they are from the accounting books we found in our family archive,” Uva says. The blackand-white photos that hang in the spa are of Uva’s great-grandparents’ ski trips to the Austrian Alps.
My visit coincides with harvest, and there’s a wonderful hint of fermentation in the air. I wander down to the winery, its floors stained a deep purple. Vineyard tours and tastings are available by request, and the wines, crafted by Spanish-born winemaker Susana Roupeiro, are poured at the on-site restaurants. Meals are a highlight at São Lourenço do Barrocal. Nearly everything is sourced from the property’s bountiful orchards, gardens and olive groves.
I dine my first night in the main restaurant, which has both a shaded patio and a cozy dining room with a curiosity-cabinetinspired back wall showcasing everything from framed butterfly wings to vintage ladies’ gloves. The freshness is evident in every bite of my zucchini flower salad, spiked with Padrón peppers and drizzled with the property’s honey and the estate-raised veal carpaccio. Hortelåo, a new garden-front al fresco restaurant, is all about simplicity — local seafood, such as head-on grilled shrimp, and just-picked garden veggies cooked to order on the grill.
You could easily spend your days on the estate lounging by the pool, indulging in yoga and spa treatments, and cycling or horseback riding the path that circles the property. But Monsaraz castle looms in the distance, and its whitewashed village is worth exploring, either via a short drive or a hilly but doable, bike ride. If you choose the latter, request a basket for souvenirs. After you visit the old bull ring, browse shops such as Mizette, known for its gorgeous, striped, handwoven carpets and blankets. The ceramic shops are plentiful, but hold off and visit the master potters of nearby São Pedro do Corval. Portugal’s largest pottery center is renowned for its extraordinary terra-cotta pieces.
I ask Uva if he worries that Aletenjo is fated to suffer the same overtourism as its southern neighbor. He gives me a pained look as he contemplates my question. But after a moment, he concludes that if families continue to move back here from the city and view this region as their home, then they’ll continue to treat it like a home.
“It’s a home in a way a house in the city couldn’t be,” he tells me. “That is priceless and worth protecting.”