The wine-making company Ervideira inaugurated last 6th of September its new Wine Tourism Pavilion in Vendinha, its winery, in the municipality of Évora.
“With this new pavilion, we will more than duplicate the capacity currently installed,” says Duarte Leal da Costa, executive director and majority shareholder of Ervideira.
The ‘Ervideira Wine Lounge’ represents an investment of 250 thousand euros and will allow the company to receive 36 thousand visitors / year, according to the responsable.
Last year, the wine tourism sector “grew more than 20%” in the company, which received “around 12 thousand visitors,” of which “close to seven thousand in the cellar,” said Duarte Leal da Costa.
Thes responsible also informed that the rest of the visitors were registered in the stores of Monsaraz (Reguengos de Monsaraz) and Évora.
“We had an older test room and three years ago we opened a second room, but this year it was impossible because we were already saturated,” he explained.
This is why to company bet on a new wine tourism pavilion, the ‘Ervideira Wine Lounge’, in a building built from the roots next to the winery, on the road linking Vendinha to Reguengos de Monsaraz.
The project was supported with 150 thousand euros by the Valorizar Program – Support Line for Tourism Appreciation of the Interior assigned by the Portuguese Tourism Office, and Ervideira has to reimburse half of this value in the coming years, explained the executive director.
The new facility began its built in February, opened in a soft inauguration in June, but is officially inaugurated tomorrow, during a “house” wine tasting event.
Espumante da Água tasted at opening
The wine cellar is now “with capacity for 80 to 100 people / day”, that is, “can accommodate 36 thousand people a year”, which represents “a great increase in installed capacity” ,
“Of course that this would happen if we were always full, but the affluence varies and the daily average of visitors is 20 people,” he acknowledged.
The director said that “there are days with more and others with less visitors,” but thanks to the new pavilion, it becomes possible to “accommodate larger groups in a much more beautiful tasting environment and overlooking the vineyards.”
The Portuguese represent “about 35%” of visitors to Ervideira, but foreigners make up the majority of tourists.
“We have a lot of Brazilians and in the last two years we have seen a great growth of French people, but we have also received people from all over the world, namely Australia and New Zealand,” he said.
On Thursday, the Great Ervideira Tasting will be used, in addition to the inauguration of the new space, to try a 100-year-old wine, a liqueur and Bio Nature wine.
“The first sparkling wine in the world” in which the “second fermentation” is made “in depth” in the waters of the Alqueva reservoir is another of the references that will be tested, according to the company, which expects, this year, to invoice 2.4 million euros.
Ervideira is one of the secular wine companies in Portugal, producing wine since 1880. Today it has 160 hectares of vineyards, distributed in the sub-regions of Vidigueira (130 hectares) and Reguengos de Monsaraz (30 hectares).
