Aveleda, or Quinta da Aveleda as it is more precisely known, is one of Portugal’s and Europe’s prettiest wines estates. Besides producing what are arguably the country’s best Vinhos Verdes, it is also a family villa (one of the region’s traditional solares or manor houses of the local Minho families), a biopark that spans eight hectares and is home to numerous plant and animal species (over one hundred and fourteen, at last count, including very cute and friendly goats that live in a green three-story stone tower) and a very technologically advanced winery. Owned by the Guedes family since the nineteenth century, a visit to Aveleda means not just tasting great wines but also taking a walk through a beautiful garden, park and its little lake (that harbors a small quaint thatched teahouse in its middle), gazing at the old kitchens, coach house and other well-preserved ancient buildings such as the House of Reboleira (whose window is a National Monument: known as the Manueline window, it is where Dom João IV was declared king), and the Four Sisters Fountain.
