Márcio Lopes is the kind of winemaker who treats a degree in Agricultural Engineering as a starting point rather than a credential. Since launching his own project in 2010 after years alongside Anselmo Mendes in Melgaço and two harvests in Australia, he has built a reputation as one of Portugal's most focused and uncompromising voices — recovering forgotten vineyard plots, working with indigenous grapes, and making wines defined by precision and restraint.
Backstory
Lopes was born in Porto in 1983. His agricultural studies at the University of Porto (graduating 2006) were shaped by early years spent with his grandparents on the land. He worked alongside Anselmo Mendes from 2005, gaining command of the Alvarinho grape in Melgaço before heading to Rutherglen and Tasmania for two Australian harvests in 2008 and 2009. He launched Márcio Lopes Winemaker in 2010 simultaneously in two regions: Pequenos Rebentos in the Vinho Verde, and Proibido in the Douro Superior. He has since acquired Quinta do Pombal near Vila Nova de Foz Côa and, in 2024, Quinta do Malhó in Ervedosa do Douro.
The Regions
Lopes works primarily in Monção and Melgaço at the northern tip of the Vinho Verde DOC, where Atlantic influence and granite soils shape the Alvarinho grape, and in the Douro's Cima Corgo, where schist and extreme altitude differentials between parcels produce wines of structural intensity. He also sources from the Douro Superior at high elevations above 700 metres.
Vineyards and Farming
His model is based on leasing or acquiring small, often abandoned plots rather than building a single consolidated estate. He prioritises old vines trained on traditional ramadas and enforcados trellising systems, which require significant manual labour but preserve yields and grape health. Farming is organic but not formally certified. No herbicides are used; biodiversity is actively encouraged. He has received the Young Winemaker Award and was included in Robert Parker's Top 100 Wine Discoveries.
Winemaking
Fermentation occurs with indigenous yeasts in small stainless steel tanks, occasionally in amphora. Extended skin contact is used for selected whites. Sulfur additions are kept very low. The philosophy is explicitly minimalist: preserve terroir character, avoid manipulation, and allow each parcel to express itself without cosmetic intervention.
The Wines
The Pequenos Rebentos range focuses on Alvarinho from Melgaço, including the benchmark À Moda Antiga bottling. The Proibido range from the Douro includes a red blending more than twenty indigenous varieties from old vineyards and a white Rabigato called Permitido from 700-metre altitude parcels. The Ensaios Soltos and Doutros Tempos labels cover experimental and single-variety releases as Lopes continues to push at the edges of what northern Portugal's indigenous grapes can express.
