Tiago Sampaio is the innovative young winemaker of Folias de Baco, a project started in 2007 that one could say was spearheaded in his childhood piggybacking on his grandfather through the farms and vineyards, always curious and plucky, willing to experiment at every step of the way. It was this incurable fascination that led him into agricultural studies at Santo Tirso and then five years of university in Vila Real, but it wasn’t until completing an agricultural engineering course that opened the doorway for his PhD studies in Oregon for Viticulture and Enology. There Tiago picked up on modern philosophies and aesthetics of winemaking, while never forgetting his roots in the Douro and returning to create his estate that has garnered much attention since. Specifically located in the Alto Douro, in the sub-region of Cima-Corgo – where the land is rough, tough and challenging – you will find his vines clinging to the slopes of schist and granite at an altitude between 500-700m.