Mike LaBelle, rookie winemaker
I was living in Taipei in 2012 and working for a Dutch company, flying back and forth from Taiwan to the Netherlands every 6 weeks which means a lot of in flight entertainment. While browsing I was intrigued by the documentary Somm and gave it a go. Needless to say I was more than skeptical at the portrayal of the MS candidates ability to blind taste wines. I was a beer and whiskey drinker at this time and knew nothing about wine.
A few years later it was 2015 and I moved to the Netherlands to work at my company headquarters and was looking for something to do and ran across a WSET1 course. My interest was to prove or disprove the authenticity of the portrayal in Somm. This led to a new love of tasting and understanding wine, subsequently completing WSET2 and 3.
We were considering vacationing and retiring in Portugal and started looking for a home and came across an opportunity to acquire vines to produce our own wine. We actually signed the vineyard deal before finding our ideal vacation home in Portimao. My lifelong goal in the field of wine is to find myself in the situation to drink DRC on someone else's dime. Still working on that...
Favorite region: Champagne, Favorite varietal: Riesling, Favorite movie: Star Wars
Shirley Taylor
My route into winemaking was about as far from traditional as it gets. In 2015, I was living in Taiwan, working as a high school mathematics teacher. That year, I traveled to Portugal to attend a mathematics conference in Faro, expecting a week of workshops on how to improve my math lessons, connecting with other like-minded teachers, and maybe a port tasting or two. It was so much more - I felt an instant connection with the country and the quiet rhythms of the Portuguese people. A seed was planted in my mind for the future.
After moving to the Netherlands, we spent the next few years traveling, saving, researching, and eventually purchasing two modest rows of vines in the Portuguese countryside. I had no formal background in viticulture or oenology, just an appreciation for wine and a desire to learn more.
Today, we are proudly and humbly producing our own small batches of local Portuguese wine. It’s an ongoing experiment where chemistry, intuition, and patience intersect, with every harvest teaching us something new about the terroir. I’m eager to build a firmer foundation and formalize what I’ve picked up from the other winemakers and vineyard staff. I plan to enroll in the WSET1 course in the very near future.
FavoriteFavorite movie: The Shawshank Redemption
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