Czar Wines: Liquid Gold in the Making

Prestige meets Czar, a producer on the mid-Atlantic Portuguese island of Pico whose determination to revive the Azores’ centuries-old viticultural traditions has resulted in one of the world’s rarest wines.

Almost 1,500km west of the Portuguese coast on the island of Pico, the third largest in the Azores, lies a little-known gem of the winemaking industry. Viticulture on the island, which stretches back more than 500 years, peaked in the 19th century before the vineyards were devastated by disease and desertification.

Now intrepid producers such as the Pico Island Wine Collective and A Cerca dos Frades are reviving the island’s winemaking traditions, taking advantage of its volcanic terroir and local grape varieties to produce characterful wines that are heavy in minerality and enlivened with bursts of saltiness that seem to come from the surrounding ocean.

But one particularly audacious winemaker has chosen to revive Czar, one of the island’s – and the world’s – rarest wines. It’s a cold, misty winter morning as Czar’s current owner, Fortunato Garcia, walks me through his vineyards in Criaçãao Velha, explaining exactly what makes his wine so special – and expensive.

Czar’s story began in 1960 when Garcia’s father, José Duarte, returned to Pico Island to teach in the town of Criaçãao Velha and was given the opportunity to take over a centuries-old vineyard. The only caveat? He had to agree to continue to produce a vinho passado, a type of late-harvest wine made with the local Verdlho grape that, at the time, was facing extinction.

Agreeing to this condition, he began his venture by researching the History of his new acquisition, learning the vineyard produced a vinho passado that was served at a 1797 banquet for the Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta – and that some 30 years later, 23,250 litres of the wine were also sent to the Russian royal court in Saint Petersburg. He discovered that when Bolsheviks stormed the royal palace during the 1917 Revolution, they found bottles of Pico wine in the cellars. That’s when he decided to call his wine Czar. 

By all accounts, Czar is a wine that shouldn’t work. Garcia tells me that producing it is sheer madness: the vineyard is unforgiving, yields are small, the production is cumbersome and the climate is unrelenting. But for him, the sublime result is worth the painstaking work. Garcia stresses repeatedly that Czar is a completely natural fortified wine – it isn’t exactly sweet, so it can’t be called a dessert wine – and, because of that, it doesn’t meet the EU regulations to be termed a liqueur.

The most important thing, Garcia says, is the soil. “All Czar’s vineyards are planted on pahoehoe lava soil,” he notes, “but most vineyards in volcanic terroir are planted on AA lava soil.” This rich soil derives from Mount Pico, Portugal’s tallest mountain, and Czar’s centuries-old, heritage-listed vineyards are set within unfathomable man-made stone structures. Garcia grows three local grape varieties – Verdelho, Arinto dos Açores and Terrantez do Pico – within the fissures of solid lava. “We plant [the grapes] on the lava floors in the curraletas, the black volcanic stone walls that protect them from the sea winds”, which blow in from the ocean that lies just metres away.

The man-made vineyard landscape is a dramatic sight. Viewed from the red mill that stands in the centre of the vineyards, black-hued stone-walled fields unfurl across swathes of land in precise square formations until, suddenly, they give way to the ocean on the horizon. It’s unimaginable that anything could grow here, but clearly it does – though, of course, managing the vines and harvesting the grapes in such difficult surroundings is no mean feat. It’s done in three stages to give the grapes more time to ripen on the vines, creating the “raisins” required to make the vinho passado. 

Garcia takes pride in the quality of his wines, but the difficult conditions make it hard to ensure consistency. In 2020, his 3.5-hectare vineyard produced just 350 litres of wine. “Due to uncertain weather conditions, it’s just not possible to create Czar every year,” he says. “On average, in a decade, there are at least four years in which there’s no Czar. Wanting over-ripe grapes to produce wine allows for only very small yields.”

When he does get the grapes he needs, Garcia completes the winemaking process then ferments it on fine lees and ages it for nearly a decade in old barrels. During this time, between 45 percent and 50 percent of the wine is lost to evaporation, a process known as the angel’s share. Although this means a much smaller yield, the evaporation concentrates the wine, giving it a sought-after richness. “This creates faster oxidation, which ensures that Czar can be consumed six or eight months after it’s opened, while maintaining the same quality,” Garcia explains. He’s quick to remind me that Czar reaches 18-20 percent ABV through natural fermentation and without the addition of brandy, sugar or yeast. Eventually, each Czar vintage is bottled nine years after harvesting the grapes.

This year, Garcia released the Last Czar of the 20th Century, a 1999 vintage produced without any oenological care or modern scientific innovations. “[It] was harvested in 1999 by my father and was his favourite – he’d share it with family and friends,” Garcia says. “So as Czar celebrates our 25th anniversary this year, our family decided to sell the remaining wine from this vintage as a tribute to him.” The Czar 1999 is packaged in exclusive Vista Alegre crystal bottles with 21.3K gold engraving; just 86 bottles are available, at €7,500 each.

Back at the Czar adega, as the traditional rustic wine cellars of Pico are known, Garcia muses on the future of his wine as he cooks dinner for his rock band. “[Czar is] exceptional, with an exuberant nose and a complex, long mouth, but at the same time it’s fresh, balanced, and with a salty touch at the end that makes you want to keep drinking,” he says. “There’s just one problem: production is rarely more than a 1,000 bottles, so it’ll never be a wine for everyone.” But perhaps it’s precisely that exclusivity and distinctive flavour that could make Czar a most sought-after wine among connoisseurs. 

Header image: The Czar vines are planted in a lava field, protected by stone walls