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Behind Adega Cartuxa is a large family, the Eugénio de Almeida family. Let's go back to 1913, the year Vasco Maria was born into one of the most influential families of the 19th century. Born in Lisbon, he quickly established ties with Évora and the Alentejo region, where the family held extensive assets. Vasco Maria always considered people to be the most valuable variable around which he organized all his efforts. Among these, the revitalization of winemaking and the investment in planting a vast area of olive groves a few kilometers from Évora stand out, resulting in the wines and olive oils still produced today.
According to tradition, the name Pêra-Manca derives from the toponym "pedra manca" or "pedra balançante" – a granite formation of rounded blocks, out of balance on solid rock.
History associates this name with the monks of the Convent of Espinheiro, in Évora, who, in the 15th and 16th centuries, owned vineyards located in a place with many loose, swaying granite stones.
Their wines were very famous at the time, to the point that Pedro Álvares Cabral took some barrels with him on his expedition to discover Brazil.
This could be the wine, shared with the indigenous people, that Pero Vaz de Caminha mentions in one of his letters.
History tells that the tradition of Pêra-Manca wine dates back to the Middle Ages. The story also recounts that around 1365, Our Lady appeared to a shepherd atop a hawthorn bush. A few years later, an oratory was built in her honor, and in 1458, given the growing importance of the site as a pilgrimage point, a church was constructed. The subsequent founding of a convent, which would house the Order of Saint Jerome, followed. And, in the 15th and 16th centuries, the vineyards of Pêra-Manca were owned by the friars of the Convent of Espinheiro in Évora.
In 1517, the monks of the Convent of Espinheiro were forced to lease these vineyards – because their upkeep was very expensive – to Álvaro Azedo, squire of the King, and his wife, Filipa Rodrigues. King John II mentions them in a letter to the Évora City Council.
It was revived in the 19th century by the prosperous Casa Soares, owned by Councillor José António d'Oliveira Soares, who transformed it into a sophisticated wine. However, following the phylloxera crisis, Casa Soares ceased producing Pêra-Manca. It was the heir of the defunct Casa Soares, José António de Oliveira Soares, who, in 1987, donated the name to the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation, which then used as its label an adaptation of an advertising poster designed by Roque Gameiro in the 18th century, gaining worldwide notoriety and recognition, and is now considered one of the great national brands.
