Quinta da Foz sold

[Christian]

The "Revista de Vinhos" wrote yesterday that the Quinta da Foz was sold to a group of investors from Angola. The Quinta is located in Pinhao and had belonged the last approx. 150 years to the CALEM family. The family had already sold a part of their assets to SOGEVINOS, 13 years ago (the brand Porto Calem, the operation in Gaia and also their stock of port wine).
The Calem family still owns the Quinta do Sagrado. No information with regards to the purchase price was given.

Somehow it must be a terrible feeling to sell something that has been such a long time in your family - but I'm sure that the family had a good reason to do so. I hope they got nicely compensated. Without knowing anything about the background of the transaction, I'm just amazed that investors from Angola bought the place. The world seems really to be changing. I hope that the new owners bought it to make great wine - and not to make some quick money...

Reading this information on the very day that Moody's lowered Portugal's credit-rating by 4 notches, I just have a strange feeling about the next years. I'm sure the financial crisis will get worse in Portugal before it gets better - and I hope that we don't see many fire-sales of valuable assets.

[DRT]

Angola was a Portuguese colony for 400 years so the link isn't surprising. I have a Portuguese friend who does lots of business in Angola so it is good to see some of the investment coming in the other direction.

There was talk a few years ago about Foz being developed into a hotel resort but the family didn't have the finance to make it happen. Perhaps that is the destiny of this quinta, but it would be great to see it also regain its reputation as a port-producing property.

[JacobH]

I don’t think last decade hasn’t been a great one for either the house of Cálem or Quinta da Foz. I did wonder when I visited there what their plan was for the property; it rather felt like they’d cut all links supplying Port to Cálem without a clear idea of what they were going to do next. Does anyone know why the Cálem family decided they had to sell both their shipper and now their main Quinta? Perhaps it was a bit like what happened to the Van Zellars in the 90s or the Grahams in the 70s.

Assuming there is still room for the tourist market to expand in the Douro, I would have thought Foz is an absolutely prime location for a hotel. And for making Port, too, of course!