Pico Vineyards

Classified since 2004 as World Heritage by UNESCO, this Regional Interest Protected Landscape of the Culture of the Vineyard in Pico Island is one of the highlights of this amazing Azores Archipelago, occupying a culture area of 154,4 hectares.
The vineyard culture started since the Island’s colonization times, in 1460, and was made and roughly built by the colons. This was an inhospitable Island, with few vegetation and covered by lava, which make it quite difficult for agriculture.

Contouring the Island by south, the colons discovered water courses and the first vineyards were planted, in Silveira. It is said that the majority of these vineyards were brought from Madeira Island of from Cyprus.
As experienced in the neighbour Faial Island, the Verdelho cast culture started: the special cast of the Azores Wine.
These volcanic soils that keep the land warm for long time, and the high humidity levels of the Island, unite the best conditions for this type of wine.

The vineyard fields integrated in the lava soils, outlined by the typical “curraletas” (stone walls that protect the vineyard from bad weather) and “currais” (the small allotments, usually rectangular), promote
a charming landscape, assembling to a rocky lacework.

This landscape houses important species of fauna and flora quite typical, some very rare and protected.
It charms for its beauty and by the many years of effort and hard work of the populations that were able to ally knowledge and ancient traditions in the cultivation of this inhospitable volcanic soils, producing richness, as it is still quite visible in the Manor Houses of the wine producers that are disposed throughout the coast.