It’s winemaking time again… End of August/ beginning of September is traditionally the period when vineyards throughout the Algarve fi ll up with grape-pickers, and the adegas (wine warehouses) throughout the region become hives of activity. For the region’s principal producers, this year is a special one. It’s the fi rst time they’ve been represented in an offi cial guide book – «A Guia dos Vinhos
do Algarve» – and the fi rst time they’ve been celebrated in a massive exhibition area at the annual FATACIL event – still running in Lagoa until Sunday. For the away-fromin-all vineyard of Monte da Casteleja, near Lagos, this year is also the fi rst they’ll be able to call their wines
truly biological.

When the 2009 harvest is bottled and ready for sale (in 2011), they’ll at last be carrying the
‘Organic’ lable their producer Guillaume Leroux has been striving for since he planted his vines nine years ago. To commemorate this milestone – and experience a traditional family ‘vindima’ (wine harvest) fi rst hand – we visited Quinta de Monte da Casteleja early one hot, hot August morning.