Situated on the right bank of the Douro – a few hundred metres downstream from Pinhão – Quinta de La Rosa is one of the region’s most impressive estates. The buildings, situated above the railway line, are visible from afar across the Douro. Unlike the two neighbouring estates, Quinta da Foz (upstream) and Quinta do Porto (downstream), Quinta de La Rosa lies outside the former Pombaline demarcation. It is, however, marked on Baron Forrester’s famous 19th-century map.
Under the business name Feuerheerd Bros., the ancestors of the current owners, the Bergqvist family, were active in the port wine trade from 1815 onwards. The Hamburg-born merchant Albert Feuerheerd, whose daughter Claire was given the Quinta as a christening present by her grandmother in 1906, laid out new terraces and had the buildings extended. He also gave the quinta its Spanish name, which is reminiscent of one of his sherries. The original name, Quinta das Bateiras, is now found only in older records and above the entrance to the estate. The renaming was also necessary to distinguish the estate’s own vineyards from those of the all-too-similar-sounding Quinta nas Bateiras on the opposite bank. One name translates as ‘on this side of the rapids’, the other as ‘beyond the rapids’; the estates once belonged together. In 1929, Claire Feuerheerd married the Anglo-Swedish Eric Bergqvist: their son Tim, as head of the family, steered the fortunes of the winery from 1972 until his death in 2018. Since then, his daughter Sophia has been at the helm of the business, successfully expanding wine tourism and broadening the portfolio, particularly beyond port wines.
Whilst the Feuerheerd company was sold to the Barros family in 1933, Quinta de La Rosa – with its vineyards consistently rated in the top Category A – has always remained in the Bergqvist family’s possession. Between 1933 and 1987, the harvest from La Rosa was sold to producers such as Croft and Sandeman. For a number of years, Sandeman also used La Rosa’s winery to produce wines (including) from other estates.
Following a change in the law allowing vineyard owners to market port wine directly once again (rather than via the trading houses in Vila Nova de Gaia), Tim and Sophia decided in 1988 to re-establish Quinta de La Rosa as an independent business. Since then, La Rosa has been producing a range of high-quality Ports and Douro wines in all colours and styles; the estate also produces an olive oil that is highly regarded beyond the region.
Since late 2002, oenologist Jorge Moreira has been responsible for port and wine production at La Rosa and has established a very elegant style. In 2005, the Bergqvists entered into the Passagem joint venture with Moreira – who is also highly regarded in the wine world for his own project, Poeira – at Quinta das Bandeiras in the Douro Superior, directly opposite the renowned Quinta do Vale Meão.