Tiago Sampaio is the definition of the avant garde master. He grew up in a wine family in Douro, and had a serious wine education, traveling the world and earning a PhD in enology from Oregon State. Now that he has mastered the rules of wine, however, he relishes in breaking them.

Tiago is located in Sanfins do Douro, a satellite village of the Cima Corgo in Douro, far north of the river, at an altitude of around 700 meters. Here, none of the conventional wisdom of Douro applies, and Tiago utilizes the freshness of the mountains to make a wide range of low alcohol, minimal intervention wines that have become the benchmark for natural wine in Portugal.

Tiago was an incredibly important innovator in the Portuguese natural wine scene. With the launch of his brand, Uivo, he was among the first in the country to make Pet Nat at commercial scale, and helped reintroduce concepts like curtimenta (skin contact white) and palhete (red and white co-ferment) back into the mainstream.

In the vineyards he is equally as innovative and naturally minded, relinquishing as much control as possible of his vineyards back to nature, and employing biodynamic and regenerative techniques to build up his soils and harmonize his vines with the surrounding ecology.

This profile and tasting notes were edited from the GK Selections website, along with the pictures used. For more information please visit GK Selections.