Vineyards at Ilha

Photograph of a landscape set formed by several small plots located on the left side of the Valcovo stream, that sprawl between roads 602 and 602-1, not far from the Rede site. Upstream there are also some walled areas with similar landscape value, such as the places of Boucal and Valcovo. The vineyard is planted in post-phylloxera terraces and reveals the use of older walls in some points, adapting to the size of the plots and the terrain of the land. This layout constitutes an interesting patchwork marked by the dividing walls and by scattered fruit trees and olive borders, as well as wood areas located on the top of the slope. The connection between the terraces is made through different types of stairs, standing out by its monumentality, the staircases are organized in several flights along the slope. In some cases the capping of the dividing walls is transformed into a staircase, sometimes forming parallel double flights, corresponding to the dividing wall of each property. This area was initially a single property, being successively divided among Filomena Carvalho's heirs. The same did not happen in the neighboring Quinta de Reimonde, where post-phylloxera terraces are preserved, with higher walls and wide planes of a straight layout. The estate, whose iron gate presents the date 1932, belongs to the heiress of Abílio Rodrigues Silva who acquired it in 1940 from a Brazilian returned to Portugal, certainly responsible for the construction of the complex, whose architecture bears the marks of the so-called "Brazilian’s houses".