Criação Velha UNESCO Vineyards

Criação Velha UNESCO Vineyards

Flemish settlers arrived on Pico in the 15th century and started growing Verdelho in bare volcanic basalt. They ferried soil from Faial by sailboat — one pocketful at a time — and poured it into holes drilled in lava. The reed palisade walls they built to block Atlantic gales, laid end to end, would circle the equator twice. UNESCO inscribed this landscape in 2004. When Czar Nicholas II was executed in 1917, bottles of Pico Verdelho were found in the Winter Palace cellars. The roots grow 30 meters through basalt until they reach saltwater caves — the salt in the wine is the ocean itself.