My wife\u2019s father Al and Uncle Angelo are from a small village in Portugal called Carvalheiro. It\u2019s about an hour and a half\u2019s drive northeast of Lisbon. It\u2019s a beautiful area where they still own the house they grew up in, acres of farmland and hundreds of cork trees. Wine making has been a part of the Alves family for over 60 years. It started with Al and Angelo\u2019s grandfather making wine by crushing grapes in a stone bowl by hand. Al and Angelo, along with their brother Nelson carried the tradition to states and typically made a red field blend they would bottle or keg and drink during Sporting (soccer) games and family parties. I remember the first time I saw the process at Melissa\u2019s grandmothers house in Hartford, big blue drums, manual crusher and a homemade wood punch down. Their wine was so good and the process looked like so much fun so I asked to join them about 12 years ago and have been making wine ever since. I now make the family wine and am really proud to carry on their tradition. <\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nAl, Angelo and I this summer at the local store in Carvalheiro having a 50 cent glass of wine<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nAl walking next to the family cork trees<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nHow did you and the family both start making wine together?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I had been making wine for 5 or 6 years when Mike (my brother in law) and I went to Jonathan Edwards Winery one afternoon with our family.\u00a0 Mike at that point didn\u2019t have a lot of exposure to red wine.\u00a0 After a few glasses of their 2017 red zinfandel, Mike was interested in joining and I wanted to do what Al, Angelo and Nelson did and make wine making a family tradition.\u00a0 Mike has fallen in love with the process and now hosts a podcast called Vino Volley<\/a>, a show about soccer and wine.\u00a0 Neither of us are Portuguese but we both love Portugal and our wine is inspired by reds we have tasted from vacations and the Portuguese style field blends made by the family for generations.<\/p>\n\n\n How have you\u2019ve gotten more family and friends involved over time<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel like every home wine maker who has friends and family that drinks and enjoys their wine somehow ends up growing their group. At one point, we had 8 or 9 guys making wine at my house until we all had kids and decided to break up the band. My good friends Kevin Lawton and Milton Quaresma now have their own setups at their houses and continue to make great wine. Kevin makes high end Cabs and Milton is on to Italian reds. We all still regularly get together and bring our favorite wines to share. I think and hope wine will keep us connected as our kids grow. This year we are expanding our team again with my Dad, Jim, making a ros\u00e9 and cousins Danny and Bruno joining in on our red blend.<\/p>\n\n\n Below are pictures of Kevin and his family making thier high end cabernet at home! <\/p>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n