One of the latest appellations to join the rush to sign up with fashionable Franschhoek appears to be the Alentejo co-op in Redondo – already their tractors are boasting Paarl registration plates. While Franschhoek has long been famous for sourcing grapes from far beyond its rapidly expanding borders, teaming up with Portugal’s most successful co-op makes a lot of sense.

AcR (Adega Cooperativa de Redondo) sells 95% of its 12 million litre production before the next harvest is brought in and like the rest of Alentejo, Angola is a prime export market. The influence of Redondo in Franschhoek is no new thing – Achim von Arnim’s concrete bunker-cum-restaurant at Cabrière is clearly inspired by the 130 000 litre concrete balloons in Redondo (below), used to store the million litre blends of such best sellers as Real Lavrador, incredibly Big in Japan. As AcR winemaker Pedro Hipólito noted “they love the label” which translates to “farmer.”

Earlier in the day, we tasted a dozen stunning Rosés at the equivalent of the Alentejo Wine Route, whose president, Dora Simões, joined us for lunch at the Fundação Eugénio d’Almeida, a winery cum Carthusian monastery outside the Roman town of Évora. Our hosts pulled out all the stops and served us dogfish soup, pork loin cooked in honey with red peppers matched with a true Portuguese icon wine, Pera Manca.

Dora