Before the brand, the winery and the ranges, there was a small vineyard in Muxagata and the desire to discover what it could give.
In 2007, Carloto Magalhães made a wine with grapes from the estate. He liked the result and invited five friends to taste it. In 2008, the six bought the property.
At the time there was no winery and no electricity: the wine was made and kept at Quinta da Canameira, next door. Decisions were taken in a shed in Muxagata — the improvised beginning of a house that still prefers to grow at the pace of the vineyard.
Friendship stayed at the centre. Not as a campaign line, but as a way to decide, taste and share the work.
In 2008 there were 9.2 hectares. The other vines came later, at different altitudes and aspects: Vinha do Anacoreta, Vinha do Piloto and Canada da Moura.
The whites live down by the stream, where the air is cooler: they are the last to catch the morning sun and the first into afternoon shade. That delay helps preserve their acidity.
The name Palato began as a temporary solution and ended up staying. The first label was created by Mariana Castro Lemos and was built around two strong “P”s, the origin of the brand’s first visual identity.
On the Vinhas do Côa labels are the valley engravings: horses, aurochs and goats left on the schist by palaeolithic hands.
Built in 2012, the winery brought the wine to the heart of the estate. Temperature-controlled vats and a barrel room with controlled temperature and humidity allow precise work without losing the human touch.
French oak gives more elegant notes; American oak gives vanilla and caramel. The barrel room is kept between 75 and 80% humidity.
Cover crops protect the soil between the rows. The vineyard is not cleared with herbicide: during dormancy, sheep eat what has grown between the vines.
The reservoir, built in 2025, is the largest in Muxagata. It serves the vines through the most demanding periods and waters the animals.
Every grape comes from the estate. That is what keeps production normally between one hundred and one hundred and thirty thousand bottles a year — what the vineyard gives, and no more.
Carlos Magalhães, better known in the trade as Carloto, holds a degree in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, taken in 1992. That same year he began working as a viticulture and oenology consultant, and has since advised producers in six Portuguese regions, from Trás-os-Montes to the Alentejo. He has taught viticulture and oenology. He made the estate’s first wine in 2007, and the proposal that started the project was his. He follows the vineyard, sets the winemaking direction and answers for the identity of each range.
He was a student of Carloto Magalhães in 1995, at the Santo Tirso agricultural school. In 2001 he went to France, to Sauternes, where he trained in oenology and worked four harvests. Back in Portugal, he joined the oenology team at Quinta do Carmo, in the Alentejo, and later worked for wine companies in Porto. Since 2017 he has worked exclusively for Palato do Côa: he coordinates viticulture and oenology with Carloto Magalhães and looks after the commercial side, in Portugal and abroad.
The Palatinhas — Lilian, Luísa, Migalha, Susana, Teresinha and Xana. They never attend the meetings, join the dinners without ceremony, and know exactly when a bottle should, or should not, be opened. They rule in silence.
The table came before the winery: it started in a shed in Muxagata, with mismatched chairs. Today the tasting room has one wall fewer — it was opened so the vineyard could come in — and there are still people who decide, without ceremony, when a bottle should or should not be opened.
Ten numbers that can be checked in the vineyard, in the cellar or on the technical sheet.
Read the ten facts
