Choose Portugal immigration and listen to Portuguese stories: The famous Quinta da Aveleda in Portugal is a family-run winery founded in 1870, with a history spanning over 140 years. Through five generations of heritage and development, it has organically combined tradition with modernity. Today, it has grown into the third-largest wine producer in Portugal, and its high-quality wines are renowned both domestically and internationally, having won numerous international awards, and it continues to write the legend of the wine industry in the 21st century.
Quinta da Aveleda is located in the city of Penafiel, near Porto, Portugal's second-largest city. Recently, our reporter visited this renowned winery to interview the owner, Martim Guedes, and hear about the family's glorious entrepreneurial history and their vision for the future.
According to records, Quinta da Aveleda was originally just a small farm growing vegetables and fruits. In 1870, Mr. Manuel Guedes shifted his focus to grape cultivation and winemaking, becoming the founder of the Aveleda wine business. With exceptional management skills, he successfully operated this nascent winery. After nearly 20 years of effort, the winery finally achieved fruitful results: Aveleda wines won a gold medal at the Berlin International Competition in 1888 and another gold medal at the Paris Exposition in 1889. Aveleda rose to fame and became a household name in the wine industry.
Today, Quinta da Aveleda has over 160 employees, but only 3 of the 14 siblings from the fifth generation of the Guedes family work there. Some employees are the sixth-generation descendants of the estate's original workers, and the winery has set aside more than 80 houses for them to live in for life. These employees have forged a deep friendship with the winery that transcends professional ties, becoming an inseparable part of its development. The winery is very strict in its selection of employees; it does not practice nepotism but rather meritocracy, focusing on quality. Employees coming to work at the winery are required to have an undergraduate degree and two years of overseas work experience. Martim himself studied business management in Barcelona, Spain, and worked in the domestic banking industry for six years. He says that only by relying on excellent talent can a company further develop and grow. Perhaps this is the secret to why Quinta da Aveleda has thrived through the generations.
As a family business of moderate scale, Quinta da Aveleda has an annual output value of 28 million euros (approximately 225 million RMB) and pays 3 to 4 million euros in taxes (approximately 24.18 to 32.24 million RMB). Its various brands of high-quality wines enjoy a high reputation in the domestic and international wine industries, with 70% exported. The refreshing and palatable Casal Garcia series of white wines is particularly popular and holds strong competitiveness in the international market, creating a positive image for the country. When mentioning this, Martim's tone reveals an unmistakable sense of pride.
Fully relying on scientific and technological power to promote innovation and development is an important management philosophy of the winery. Quinta da Aveleda has fewer than 200 employees, yet 35 of them are scientific and technical personnel, a very significant proportion. In recent years, the winery has attached great importance to technological innovation, increased investment, and relied on technology to continuously launch new products, driving continuous growth in production and sales. The winery frequently sends staff to universities for on-the-job training to improve their research and marketing skills, contributing more to the winery's development. The winery also provides scholarships to university students at a Portuguese university and a biological research institute, encouraging them to specialize in research on the health benefits of white wine.
Quinta da Aveleda is also a tourist destination known for its charming natural scenery and has been named an International Wine Garden of the Year nine times. Everywhere you look, there are lush trees, blooming flowers, small bridges over flowing water, swans, and peacocks. The entire estate is like a natural garden. More than 10,000 tourists visit here every year, with an admission fee of 4 euros per person. The winery plans to invest 500,000 euros (approximately 4.03 million RMB) in the construction of classrooms and restaurant facilities to host training courses for tourists, allowing them to gain an in-depth understanding of winemaking and learn how to enjoy fine wine. Through this initiative, the winery plans to increase the number of annual visitors to 30,000.
Quinta da Aveleda entered the Chinese market in 2007 and currently sells its branded wines in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau, with annual sales of only 150,000 euros (approximately 1.2 million RMB). Mr. Martim says that China is a large market, and the winery has increased investment and strengthened promotional activities to find more partners in China, aiming to increase the sales volume of its branded wines in China and allow more and more Chinese people to taste the fine wines of Aveleda.