Near Lagos, Piotr Cholewa is crafting award-winning Algarve wines defined by Atlantic freshness, small-scale production and a distinctive boutique approach
A land of opportunity for experimental winemakers, the Algarve is quietly – and defiantly – shedding its reputation for sun-soaked ‘plonk’. To the surprise of the rest of Portugal, this southern coastal strip is now producing a growing number of serious, award-winning wines. Among those leading the charge is Silesian engineer-turned-vigneron Piotr Cholewa, whose dream has taken shape at Quinta da Pedragosa, near Lagos.
Eleven years ago, Cholewa came to Portugal in search of early retirement, not a winery. A successful businessman from southern Poland, he had already tried his hand at wine retail and hospitality in Warsaw – a chain of shops, a wine bar and a restaurant – but wine consumption in Poland remained low. He sold up and set his sights on warmer climes.
True to his engineering mindset, he treated the Algarve as a feasibility study. He mapped the coast, identified some 500 possible sites, and personally visited around 200. The shortlist was narrowed to two properties; he chose Quinta da Pedragosa, a coastal estate in the Lagos sub-region, the coolest and most temperate corner of the Algarve, ideal for fresher, Atlantic-influenced wines.
Wine had always been part of his life. His grandfather Teodor made high-acid fruit wines – from plums, blackberries and blueberries – after moving from Ukraine to grape-less, post-war Silesia. That taste for bright, incisive wines would later echo in Piotr’s own style.
In Portugal, however, the vineyard arrived almost by accident: “My neighbour had an old, 30-year-old vineyard,” he recalls. “After four years helping him, he said, ‘I’m so old, my son doesn’t want to do anything.’ So I bought it.”
Today, Quinta da Pedragosa has just over 4.5 hectares under vine, about 2.5 of which are from the original Aragonez, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon plots, with low yields of around 12 tonnes. Cholewa added Arinto and the historic Algarvian grape Negra Mole, fertilising the vineyards naturally with lupins grown on the estate.
The turning point came in 2023 at ProWein in Düsseldorf, where Cholewa met Portuguese winemaker Pedro Ribeiro of Herdade do Rocim, famed for his amphora (talha) wines in the Alentejo. Cholewa was looking for someone to make amphora wine in the Algarve; Ribeiro wanted a foothold in the region. They shook hands and, that same year, produced their first clay-fermented red – just 1,000 bottles.
Ribeiro now oversees winemaking at Quinta da Pedragosa and helped assemble a top-flight team, including consultant oenologist and professor Amândio Cruz and designer Rita Rivotti. Rivotti’s labels tell Cholewa’s story in graphic form: stone for Pedragosa, the car in which Piotr travelled across the region, the ocean, the winery, the endless Algarve sky, and, tucked into a corner, a black eagle – the emblem of Silesia, the historic region straddling today’s Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Russia. “My grandfather was German, but now I am Polish,” he says, insisting that he is, above all, Silesian.
In the cottage that will soon host overnight guests, enlarged prints of the labels share wall space with a framed diploma from Revista de Vinhos: Quinta da Pedragosa’s inaugural amphora red has already been named among the Top 30 Portuguese wines of the year, selected from some 2,500 entries, and crowned best wine of the Algarve.
From the start, Cholewa has resisted the lure of scale. “I’ve wanted to be a niche producer from the beginning,” he says. “My plan is to produce about 30,000 bottles; that’s our cap.” Within that, he aims for 3,000 bottles of amphora wine and about 1,000 bottles of Arinto espumante, due in two years.
Quinta da Pedragosa Branco
The current line-up opens with Quinta da Pedragosa Branco (€15.99), a blend of Arinto and Malvasia that serves as a statement of intent: delicate yet full-bodied, with piercing acidity and Atlantic freshness. “The acidity is very high, and the sugar level is very low,” Cholewa notes. “Our plan is to make very light wines, the opposite of the usual Portuguese style.” Eight months in 500-litre used French oak add texture rather than overt wood, with a luminous citrus colour, subtle minerality, tropical hints and a creamy, long finish, thanks to skin maceration and bâtonnage.
Quinta da Pedragosa Rosé
Launched alongside the white, Quinta da Pedragosa Rosé (€15.99) is a gastronomic, single-varietal Aragonez from an early-August harvest, yielding naturally low alcohol and high freshness. Six months in 500-litre French oak give the pale-salmon wine a mineral backbone, floral and spicy nuances, and enough structure to stand up to grilled robalo (sea bass) or rich tuna belly.
Quinta da Pedragosa Tinto
The estate’s red (€15.99) is a field blend made in a loosely Bordeaux-inspired style, yet firmly rooted in Algarvian soil.
All varieties ferment together: a touch of Negra Mole, around 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Shiraz, and the rest Aragonez, with proportions shifting each year. Cholewa learnt this approach three decades ago in the Languedoc with the pioneering Gilbert family; he relishes the idea that each vintage will be subtly different.
Quinta da Pedragosa Amphora Tinto
The jewel in the crown is the Amphora Red (€34.90), the wine that propelled the estate into the national spotlight. A blend of Negra Mole, Aragonez and Syrah, it is fermented with native yeasts in clay amphorae without temperature control, and with no additives or stabilisation prior to bottling. Bright ruby in the glass, it offers pure notes of sour cherry, raspberry and fresh plum, with herbal and vegetal hints, a creamy yet taut palate, marked minerality and a saline edge that speaks of its Atlantic setting.
Beyond wine, Cholewa is an ardent devotee of classical music, tennis and – above all – gastronomy. “My goal is to have my wines in a three-star restaurant,” he says. With no three-star venues yet in Portugal, he is in talks with temples of haute cuisine such as Rutz in Berlin and The Table in Hamburg, and he knows many of Europe’s top dining rooms from the inside. “I’ve visited maybe 30 three-star restaurants in the last 10 years.”
Oenotourism is the next chapter at Quinta da Pedragosa. Cholewa is opening the estate to visitors for tastings and pairing menus and will start welcoming guests to his cottage for intimate farm-stay experiences this summer.
A larger winery, a VIP tasting room and four apartments are part of the longer-term plan, all overlooking the Atlantic-brushed vineyards that began as a retirement dream and became a Silesian engineer’s second act.
Photo Alexandra Stilwell/Open Media Group
In an Algarve long typecast as a sun-and-sand playground, Quinta da Pedragosa offers a different script: clay amphorae instead of cocktails, Negra Mole in place of neon-bright nightcaps and a quietly determined outsider proving that serious wine can flourish in the most unexpected corners of Europe.
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