At the foot of the Serra do Socorro, embraced by forests of secular trees, we are surprised and graced by the beauty of Quinta da Póvoa, a farm consisting of two 19th century houses, full of history and untold stories...
The centennial farm was the stage for the French Invasions, having served as a strategic shelter to the armed civil resistance, led by the Royal Volunteers during the first invasion (1807-1808), and later transformed into the headquarters of Sir Brent Spencer, 2nd commander of the British Army of the Peninsula, during the occupation and defense of the Lines of Torres Vedras in 1810.
Quinta da Póvoa preserves a historical heritage related to the time of the Peninsular War. Can you reveal to us some curiosities and episodes that have passed from generation to generation regarding this remarkable period of our history?
As in any other situation of war conflict, the marks left by the Peninsular War plagued the family for many long years. It was already at the beginning of the 20th century, and through General Teixeira Botelho, military historian and author of the popular History of the Peninsular War (1915), as a neighbor and friend of my great-grandparents, that the family began to face with a different spirit what they classified up until then as “bad memories”. Teixeira Botelho took Sir Charles Oman, the British military historian, to a visit to the Quintas and the Serra do Socorro when he was preparing his famous History of the Peninsular War. Since then, my great-grandmother, who lived 100 years, took an interest in preserving the heritage for the generations to come.
Most of the stories we know, some still heard directly from the main interlocutors, have passed from generation to generation and involve, in addition to the family, the faithful employees who then lived and worked on the properties. The preservation of these stories is a matter of respect for the history of those who had no choice but to defend their lives and properties from the atrocities of the invaders.
In this context, I leave here some curious reports.
On the slope of the Serra do Socorro, belonging to the Quinta do Vale do Corvo, there is an area known as Terra do Alferes, in honor of a local of resistance which stood out in the fight against the French, supported logistically by the Quintas da Póvoa and Vale do Corvo.
Here is an episode as narrated by my great-grandmother Maria Sophia Barreiros Cardozo de Araújo de Barros e Vasconcellos:
The Ensign (1), João de Miranda, was the nephew of my great-great-grandfather Francisco Camarate and played a leading role in organizing the local resistance against the French. He used a makeshift sword that was both strange and curious, namely, the guard of a 16th-century weapon, preserved for several generations in the family, grafted on to a 19th-century infantry blade. As soon as he became known for his deeds, he caught the attention of the French, who pursued him tirelessly, and eventually succumbed to the hosts of Junot, the victim of an ambush on the so-called slope of the Serra do Socorro. To the astonishment of family and friends his body never appeared, as neither did his bizarre sword, leading to the assumption, for almost 100 years, that the place associated with the ambush that caused his death was the road that goes from Casal Barbas to S. Sebastião/Enxara, between the Quinta da Póvoa and Vale do Corvo. In memory of the tragic incident, a stone cross was placed on the site by the family. In 1904, however, my great-grandfather, Eduardo Camarate de Barros e Vasconcellos, was supervising the agricultural work of removing stones in the middle of the Serra do Socorro when the hired labourers under his command came across a strange sword. Thanks to local memories, Eduardo soon realized that it was effectively the missing sword of the "Ensign" and, moved, has since kept it religiously, in memory of the hero who suffered there.
Although the stone cross disappeared during the widening of the old royal road from Torres Vedras to Lisbon, never having been replaced, probably due to the above mentioned discovery of the sword elsewhere, even to this day both sites are designated as the Land of the Ensign and the Cross.
(1) "Ensign", in medieval times, was the standard or flag-bearer.
Regarding the relevant interest and excellent quality of Lisbon wines:
Robert Bremner, pioneer of historical tourism on the Lines of Torres Vedras, discovered in the memoirs of August Shaumann, the general commissioner of supplies for Wellington’s army, a highly praiseworthy reference to my great-great-grandfather, who marketed the wines produced by the family in Quintas das Barras, Porto das Barras and Póvoa. Wrote Shaumann in his diary: “I went to Mr. Cammarata (Francisco Rodrigues Camarate) to Gradil, the wine dealer who supplied the regiment and who had the most wonderful wine there was; white wine, in particular, shone like gold when it came out of the tap of his earthenware vat” (In On the Road with Wellington: The Diary of a War Comissary). This note gains even more relevance since references to Portuguese civilians by the British military are very rare.
Royal Volunteers of Torres Vedras and the armed resistance:
As recorded in the memories of Friar Taveira, a Franciscan who had left the convent of Mafra at the time of the arrival of General Junot in the first invasion, my great-great-grandfather Herculaneum de Barros and Vasconcellos, owner of the Quinta das Barras, was an assistant to the Battalion of Royal Volunteers of Torres Vedras. As a close friend of Friar Pedro Taveira, he was an accomplice in the organization and preparation of the armed civil resistance against the hosts of General Loison, "the fearsome maneta" (“one-handed”), which, installed in the convent of Mafra, committed the greatest barbarities in the region during the first French invasion.
The resistant nucleus essentially comprised officers of the Portuguese army who had refused to incorporate the military force sent by Junot to France to reinforce Napoleon, wealthy farmers, and grassroots with funny nicknames. It relied logistically on nearby farms. They worked primarily with the main communication routes to Lisbon, such as those surrounding the Serra do Socorro.
The Quinta has always remained in the possession of your family, which has preserved all the historical heritage for over 200 years. What object left by General Sir Brent Spencer do you consider most curious or peculiar?
There is a British war chest (small drum) that reminds me of my grandfather Manuel de Araújo de Barros e Vasconcellos and the stories he told me around it. In addition to the part of the house that has remained unchanged since the period and where it is possible to imagine how the British general staff lived then, I have a special attraction for some civilian objects much more suited to comfortable leisure than to war, a fact that makes me believe that British senior officers came to the Lines to do tourism. In my opinion, non-bellicose memories and curiosities, alien to the typical accounting of dead and wounded in most of Europe's battlefields, are what makes the Lines of Torres Vedras a unique tourist destination totally inserted in the countryside.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, better known as the Duke of Wellington, had his command post very close to Quinta da Póvoa. After more than 200 years, you decided to embrace an innovative project and launch a product designed with one of the endogenous products from your Quinta, the Rocha pear, while paying tribute to Wellington. Will you tell us more about this product and how the project came about?
The Old Nosey project was born in July 2018 as a European registered trademark, with the aim of producing a range of excellence of spirits and IGP Lisbon wine. The ex-libris product is the Old Nosey Perry Spirit, a premium drink resulting from several years of experience and research.
Old Nosey was officially launched on November 24, 2018 in the city of Torres Vedras, on RTP1's Aqui Portugal live show.
The Quinta da Póvoa preserves the traditional dryland orchards aged between 60 and 159 years, installed on the basaltic slope of the Monte Socorro, which served as the main observation and communication center of the Duke of Wellington during the defense of the Lines of Torres Vedras.
The orchards are composed mostly of Rocha pear but also other autochthonous varieties that serve as pollinators, such as Carapinheira Parda, Pérola and Lambe-os-dedos.
Although the fruit produced is of excellent organoleptic quality, it does not produce in the quantity and caliber modern standardization requires, making the system obsolete. Once all the differentiating potential was recognized, it was necessary to find an alternative outlet channel where true quality was valued over quantity. Distillation was the option that aroused our greatest interest. As a unique distillate, produced in a former headquarters of the Lines of Torres Vedras that maintains agricultural activity as it had been for 210 years, and in tune with family history and the Monte Socorro, the obvious path was the articulation with the Peninsular War, searching inspiration in everything that surrounded us.
The Old Nosey not only intends to honor General Wellington as a hero of the Torres Vedras region, but also the people who helped build and defend the Lines of Torres Vedras. The success of the defensive system dictated the beginning of the decline of the Napoleonic empire and the glory of the Duke of Wellington. This huge local effort was symbolized in the Old Nosey packaging through the surrounding burlap sack, as the rural population kept itself warm, during their arduous country chores, with this type of textile.
It is said that the brandy, as we know it today, dates back to the time of the Peninsular War and that, after the end of it, many of the French who remained in the region began to distill the wine, as they did in France. Given this historical fact and the connection of the Quinta da Póvoa to this period, did it serve as an inspiration for the creation of this very peculiar brandy?
The production technique of the Old Nosey pear distillate is clearly from the French school but adapted to the main variety of national pear. It was the British, however, who stimulated with additional doses of brandy the soldiers who were going to fight.
What is the origin of the name "Old Nosey" and what is its meaning and connection to the Duke of Wellington?
MVG - The name "Old Nosey" takes us back to the Peninsular War era and was the nickname by which General Wellington, a prominent figure in the history of the Lines of Torres Vedras, was known to his soldiers. General Wellington assumed the command of the Peninsular army after the death of General Sir John Moore, at the Battle of A Coruña, in 1809. The nickname appears during the construction of the Lines of Torres Vedras and accompanies Wellington to the final victory in the Battle of Waterloo, where he was greeted with the cries of "Hurrah for Old Nosey"!
The logo symbolizes the bulky nose of the first Duke of Wellington in the form of a shaded half-pear, evoking not only the intense aroma of ripe fruit present in a premium distillate, but also a more romanticised ‘B-side’ of the experience in the Lines of Torres Vedras, ironically reported by Lord Byron and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard), among numerous curiosities and intense humor.
The registration of Old Nosey as a European verbal trademark exceeded all our initial expectations, as the nickname of the first Duke of Wellington was relatively well known among Anglo-Saxons, so there was a great possibility of being already someone's industrial property. It was undoubtedly an excellent work of Engineer Luís Caixinhas, of Inventa Internacional. In parallel, we also obtained the registration of the associated brand The Spirit of The Lines.
In a nutshell, how would you describe the Old Nosey brandy?
It is a spirited drink, fruity and soft, with an intense aroma of ripe pear. The distillation is done in traditional copper stills in the Quinta da Póvoa, former headquarters of the Lines of Torres Vedras, from Rocha do Oeste pears, produced in traditional dryland orchards over 60 years old. It is a totally national premium product, without any incorporation of alcohol or other national or foreign ingredients beyond the Rocha do Oeste pear of Quinta da Póvoa. It follows the line of top fruit spirits from Central and Northern Europe, such as Williamine, Calvados or Kirsh.
Old Nosey, a fully national premium product, holds quality assurance certificates. Which?
It holds four quality assurance certificates: Integrated Production, Pera Rocha do Oeste, PEFC (sustainable forest management of indigenous forest species composed of oaks, cork oaks, arbutus trees etc., involving orchards) and Natural.pt (while produced sustainably in the protected landscape of the Serra do Socorro and Archeira).
The production is fully sustainable and environmentally responsible. The type of packaging used is perfectly biodegradable and consists exclusively of components such as glass, natural beeswax seal, cork stopper and wraparound burlap sack.
Given all its characteristics, Old Nosey won the Intermarché 2019 National Production Award in the category of National Processed Products.
In addition to be consumed pure as a digestive, in what other ways can we taste and/or use Old Nosey?
Old Nosey can be consumed:
- As coffee flavoring.
- In cocktail, with tonic water, soda, or other ingredients, as presented at the Lisbon Bar Show by the renowned Torreense bartender Miguel Gomes.
- As suggested by the Vice-President of the International Academy of Gastronomy, Engineer Bento dos Santos, The Old Nosey is suitable for the preparation of game marinades or pork, accompanied with pear puree, a seasoning of terrines and pates, Wellington loin.
- Elaborate desserts: flambé crêpes and ice cream covered with egg whites beaten with sugar. Preparation of: Omelete Norvégienne, Tatin de Pera pie, Kouglof, Baba au Poire.
In addition to the national market, is there an intention to promote the product internationally?
Yes, we have already made a promotional action at a fair in Prague, with Frutugal, and in Spain and London through the embassies, the AICEP and the Chamber of Commerce. There is undoubtedly a long way to go in the countries involved in the Napoleonic wars.
Where can we buy Old Nosey?
In Torres Vedras, in the friendly Loja Torres Vedras of 9 de Abril street; in the neighbouring municipalities, in the Intermarché wine cellars; in Lisbon, in Garrafeira Agrovinhos, in Alcântara.
