Cockburn’s Quinta de Val Coelho (coh EL yo), purchased in the 1890s, has a mixture of terracing, both traditional hand built and patamares, the newer, broader type of terrace built with bulldozers. Cockburn’s has also experimented with a vertical planting technique here, which needs no terraces.
The magnificent farm house at Quinta do Tua dates back to the early 19th Century. With older, traditionally-terraced vineyards on the property, only one or two rows of vines can be planted on each terrace. This method is used in most vineyards throughout the Douro region.
In 1978, Cockburn’s pioneered a new vineyard development in the flatter, more arid far eastern Douro region in the Vilariça (villa REECE ah) Valley, east of Val Coelho, with the purchase of 740 acres of land in at Quinta do Atayde (ah tah YEED). The land is flatter here, but still within the top classification of the port area. With 420 acres of vineyards, Cockburn’s began to experiment with innovative planting and vine selection. Cockburn’s is the only port company to have made a major investment in this part of the port region. The project has been even more successful than expected, and provides grapes for Cockburn’s Special Reserve and, occasionally, Vintage Port.
The Quinta do Atayde vineyards were planted with the new block system, rather than the traditional random intermixing of vines. By careful clonal selection, they developed disease-resistant, higher yielding vines of the best Douro grape varieties, especially the Touriga Nacional, widely held to be the king of port grapes. Block planting allows the grape varieties to be harvested at each variety's peak ripeness, and allows separate fermentation, simplifying the task of the blender when the ports are created. Before block planting, when a vineyard was harvested, some grapes were under ripe and others were over ripe. Cockburn's properties in Vilariça provide a reliable supply of high-quality wines for the Special Reserve blend.
Cockburn’s latest acquisition, Quinta dos Canais (dosh can EYESH), is a 750-acre property overlooking the Douro River that is considered the "jewel in Cockburn’s crown." Quinta dos Canais grapes have provided the backbone of Cockburn’s vintage port blend since the 1890s. The property’s 345 acres of vineyard land is newly terraced and block planted. Cockburn’s nursery has supplied all the vines used to replant the vineyards here, and only the five classic Douro grape varieties were used.
