WINEMAKING TEAM

José Luis Moreira da Silva

Chief Production Officer

Born in Porto, José Luis Moreira da Silva earned a degree in Microbiology from Catholic University, where he also obtained a master’s degree in Oenology. After working with Sogrape and then helping start up the Duorum project, he joined the Quinta dos Murças team in 2015 as manager of winegrowing and winemaking. In 2019, he became responsible for Quinta do Ameal in the Vinho Verde region. The following year he took over as production manager of Sovina, and he has most recently assumed the role of Chief Production Officer, taking on responsibility for all Esporão production, as well as being member of Esporão’s board.

João Ramos

Winemaker – Alentejo reds

Born and raised in Setúbal, but with strong roots in the Alentejo, João Ramos has a degree in Agronomical Engineering from the Instituto Superior de Agronomia de Lisboa, and Master’s degrees in Viticulture and Oenology from L’Institut Agro Montpellier, in France, and Hochschule Geisenheim University, in Germany. His curiosity led him to participate in harvests in many parts of the world, including the Cava Catalan area in Spain, Rheingau in Germany, and Marlborough in New Zealand. He later lived in Italy, working as assistant winemaker at Monteverro in Tuscany and then Azienda Agricola Maria Donata Bianchi in Liguria.

Back in Portugal, he joined the Esporão family in 2019 where he recently took over as Esporão´s winemaker for Alentejo reds.

Teresa Gaspar

Winemaker Alentejo – whites

Teresa Gaspar was born in Lisbon, but it was in the Beira Alta, where her family roots are, that she fell in love with the countryside and agriculture. She holds a degree in Agronomic Engineering from the Instituto Superior de Agronomia in Lisbon, after which she obtained an International Wine Business degree from the Catholic University of Lisbon and a masters in Wine Biodynamics from Cambium Formazione.

She began her professional career in the Douro and Alentejo and has participated in harvests in Portugal, Australia and California. She spent two years working at Bodega Noemia in Patagonia, Argentina. For eleven years she lived in Tuscany as a winemaker at Tenuta di Trinoro and Castello di Montegiove. Not only has she gained tremendous international experience, but she has specialized specifically in premium wine production. She joined the Esporão team in the early days of the 2022 harvest, as Esporão’s winemaker for Alentejo whites.

Lourenço Charters

Winegrowing and winemaking manager, Quinta dos Murças and Quinta do Ameal

It was thanks to of his grandfather, a lifelong Douro wine producer, that Lourenço Charters came to be interested in the world of wine and agriculture. He studied Agronomy at the University of the Azores and then obtained a Master’s degree in Viticulture and Oenology at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto do Douro followed by a postgraduate degree in Oenology at the Catholic University of Porto.

He has worked at grape harvests in Tulbagh in South Africa, Clare Valley in Australia, and the Loire Valley in France. For ten years, he was a winemaking manager in the Douro and responsible for a small estate in Baião in the Vinho Verde region. He then spent some time in the Lisbon region, producing Bucelas and Colares wines until 2022, when he joined the Esporão family as winegrowing and winemaking manager for Quinta dos Murças in the Douro, and Quinta do Ameal in the Vinho Verde region.

Ana Cruz

Winemaker Alentejo

Ana was born in the heart of the Dão wine region in a small village in the municipality of Tondela, and was introduced to the wine worldat a young age by the hand of her maternal grandmother. Following a degree in biology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, she did a M.S. in Applied Microbiology at the School of Biotechnology of the Catholic University of Porto. She continued her academic studies with a postgraduate degree in Viticulture Engineering and Oenology, at the Faculty of Sciences, financed in part by research grants in plant science.

Her first experience with winemaking dates from a 2019 internship at Quinta do Ribeiro Santo, in Dão. For three years, she contributed as part of the winemaking team of the Borges Wine Society, working in three regions – Vinho Verde, Dão and Douro. In October 2022, she moved to Alentejo to join the Esporão winemaking team. In February 2023, she accepted Esporão’s challenge to go to Argentina to participate in the Zuccardi family harvest.