On February 18, World Wine Day is celebrated, and ADEGA tells the origin of viticulture in Brazil, which dates back to the beginning of the arrival of the Portuguese.
Although Pedro Álvares Cabral set foot on Brazilian soil in 1500, it was only thirty years later that Portugal effectively began occupying the colony.
It was in March 1532 that a nobleman named Brás Cubas, born in the city of Porto became the first wine grower in Brazil.
After founding the village of Santos, he ordered the cultivation of grape varieties brought from Portugal on the slopes of the Serra do Mar, where the city of Cubatão is today.
The venture didn’t work well, so he went up the mountain range.
The first vineyards worth mentioning were cultivated around Tatuapé, having received a citation from priest Simão de Vasconcelos as “fecundas vinhas paulistanas” (fruitful São Paulo vineyards).
Filled with challenges, turbulent periods, and conquests, the history of winemaking in Brazil took a significant step forward during, and especially at the end of the 20th century when many families of the descendants of the first Italian immigrants understood well what was happening in the country’s wine industry.
They did not miss the opportunity to become professionalized, creating new companies or solidifying the existing ones, with a high level of technical sophistication and business knowledge.
The vineyards planted in Brazilian soil are distributed in six primary regions.
In Rio Grande do Sul: Serra Gaúcha, Campos de Cima da Serra, Campanha Gaúcha, and Serra do Sudeste.
In Santa Catarina, Planalto Catarinense;
In the Northeast of the country, Vale do São Francisco,
In addition to exciting and increasingly promising projects in the states of Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, and Goiás.
Currently, the areas with certification in Brazil are: the Denomination of Origin – D.O. Vale dos Vinhedos, the Indication of Origin (I.P.) Pinto Bandeira, the I.P. Altos Montes, the I.P. Monte Belo do Sul, the I.P. Farroupilha, and the most recent I.P. Campanha Gaúcha.
* The text published after adaptations is an excerpt from the ADEGA Brasil Wine Guide 2022
With information from ADEGA UOL