Imagine building a calendar that could predict lunar and planetary movements 5000+ years ago, before the invention of the wheel . Imagine trying to understand when to plant grain so that your work wasn’t lost to a spring frost, but early enough to harvest before the fall freeze.


In winter, we try to look past our screens for a bit, observe the darkness, and embrace the extra time to rest. We contemplate how extreme this season must have felt to people before electricity , knowing that the pace of our modern lives doesn’t change drastically from season to season as it did for our ancestors.

I remember this when I see the Artist Series labels of the last year, depicting the neolithic structures of southern Portugal . In those structures, we see a relatable human desire to make sense out of nature, to predict events. For these early farmer-cultivator civilizations in the ancient breadbasket of Alentejo, the trio of wheat, olives and grapes were preserved over winter in the form of bread, oil, and wine . 

Here and now, as we wait for spring and plan our metaphorical planting , we, too, celebrate the preserves of wine and oil, plus the bounty of tinned fish and seafood, and many other preserves to enjoy as we contemplate what we want to plant.

At Cultivamos, we spent our fall harvest season gathering knowledge and information about Portugal —the country we love so much for its richness and diversity of landscape, climate, geology, tradition, flavor and people. This spring, we will be busy “planting the seeds” of this acquired wisdom with the debut of Maps of Portugal and events like Portugal On the Table. As we spy spring on the horizon, we travel, continue to build our community, and hope that the winter’s rest has been restorative. It’s time to get back out and plant, so we can grow .

Ben Carson-Brown, President & CEO, Cultivamos

When we launched the Cultivamos Library last year, it was to create a home for our ever-expanding resources for understanding Portugal —through the lens of our portfolio, but also through food, wine and travel .

The Library was inspired also by our cumulative decades of searching for a single document that gathered together the key elements that contribute to Portugal’s magic : its weather systems, elevations, geologies, grapes, language, borders.

Our search led us to creating Maps of Portugal for ourselves, but also for you: our friends in the trade, and anyone excited by and curious about Portugal. 

The harvest for our extra virgin olive oils took place in October,  November and December 2025. We bottled the first release, the 2025/2026 Green Olive Oil, in the last week of October, and began reaching markets soon after. Green Olive Oil highlights intense fruit and a bitter, peppery finish that reflects the maximum freshness of a new EVOO. 

For 3 months after harvest ends, the mill filters, bottles, and ships all the new oils to markets in Europe, Brazil, and the US.

Esporão keeps looking ahead, with plans to plant 200 more hectares (490 acres) of traditional Portuguese cultivars over the next two years and once again upgrade the mill, reinforcing their commitment to quality and sustainability. It is raining, the soil is replenished, and a new cycle begins in the groves.

Rui Abecassis, Director of Business Development

A binding thread and driving force among our small, global team is boundless curiosity. And certainly, in any business, curiosity is the key to expansive, big picture thinking—and bold action. But crucially, shared delight in learning is the glue that keeps us together, despite being spread across time zones, job functions, and three continents.

Over the last 18 months, all of us at Cultivamos have been constructing a place to engage with our curious inquiries. By giving our soaring wonder a shape, in the form of the Library , we can stay grounded in how we talk about wine, olive oil, and Portugal with our colleagues in the trade and with ourselves. By offering tools and resources that spark other peoples’ curiosity, we find ourselves having better conversations. (See below for Office Hours!)

Similarly, transforming our “science feelings” around the magic we observe while visiting Portugal into visual data, i.e. The Maps of Portugal , means we can connect wide-ranging experiences in a new way. The why of a hushed, mossy corner of a vineyard is revealed when its rainfall, soil type, elevation, and proximity to the sea are laid out on a page all at once. 

Where we go next with the Maps and the Library is an invitation. Portugal On the Table is where we reflect, converse, and learn together. Talk, eat, drink, pick up a plate to see where it was made. (Spoiler alert, it’s Portugal.) Look at the map, and spot the clay soils that made the plate possible. Connect a dot. Soak some bread in the fresh olive oil, or taste how granite shifts to schist over two wines and a few dozen kilometers. Come with us—or better still, let us come to you. See you at the table. 

Erin Drain, Director of Trade Marketing & Communications

February 24
Portugal On the Table

Chicago, IL
Email for details - erin@cultivamos.com

March 24
Portugal On the Table

Raleigh/Durham, NC
Email for details - david@cultivamos.com

April 15
Wines of Portugal

Orlando, FL 
Email for details - ben@cultivamos.com

April 17
Wines of Portugal

New York City, NY
Email for details - ben@cultivamos.com

April 21
Prime Trade Show

Atlanta, GA
Email for details - david@cultivamos.com

Instagram @cultivamos_usa 

Editor’s note: We spoke with our friend and longtime colleague, Michael Benevides of Portugalia Marketplace , about his experiences growing up in Fall River, Massachusetts, working alongside his father, and the visit to Portugal that made a big impression in his youth. We have a preview of the interview below, and the full story on our site. Follow on social media at @portugalia_marketplace.

Erin: Most Americans don't grow up near a sizable Portuguese diaspora community. Until recently, most Americans likely didn’t have Portugal on their radar at all. What is your perception of this growing interest in Portugal?

Michael: It’s really interesting, growing up in a Luso-American community where everyone around you is Portuguese-speaking — and in some ways, experiencing a fair amount of discrimination for being Portuguese — because you were different from the other kids. There was some level of shame in the community, and the kids who interacted with American kids at school who got picked on would assimilate and lose their heritage a little bit. Growing up the way I grew up, Portugal was not in fashion. 

Erin: Is there a certain region or a style of wine that you think about when you think about the early days of Portugalia?

Michael: We got into the wine business 13 years ago with this market. Prior to that, we didn't sell wine. As part of our concept, we set out to be a billboard for wines of Portugal. We said, “We're going to carry everything that's available.” So, when we opened up the market, many vendors reached out to us with their offerings. From smaller to larger suppliers, we work with a vast array of wine distributors to be able to offer the unique and large selection we have available.

Being from the Azores, it's been really fascinating to see the wine scene grow there. If you told me 10 or 12 years ago that when we opened up the market, we'd be selling Azorean wines at this rate, I would have said, “I don't think so.” [But] there's a direct correlation between travel and interest, right? More and more people go to the Azores, and they become interested in those wines. It's not [just] the Azorean community that consumes them.

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We’re building a community of wine professionals and culinary experts. Reply to this email directly to get the link to our upcoming Office Hours or email ben@cultivamos.com