The landscape of Pico Island vine culture was designated World Heritage on 2 July 2004, after its application was approved by the United Nations agency, UNESCO, at a meeting held in the Japanese city, Suzhou!

 

	From nothing, create From stone, presumably inert, MAKE LIFE GROW

 

What a titanic task of many generations. To toil stone and land, to manage, to resist, to find nourishment. To plant, to fight against weather, to reap. And then, to find moments of pleasure, to gather friends, to conquer solitude.

What did the women and men of Pico feel when they tried to tame their island, to find space, where the stem would thrive, give it sun, take away the wind, and hide the salt that comes from the sea?

To protect the vineyard, by force, with stone – the same stone that suffocates it. In the end, to create lace which is landscape. Blankets intertwined with lava and the green of vegetation. And the escape from solitude through the constructed communities, also on a black backdrop, yet dotted with red and green.

The vines which produce the wine of Pico were and still are planted in the cracks in the fine basalt layers, which bestow on the resulting landscape a unique nature. As mentioned above, through intensive labour and much effort, mankind planted vine shoots in large extensions of black and hard rock, which had been deemed until then totally barren. In order to protect the vines from the strong winds coming in from all directions and the sea erosion, protection walls were built from basalt stone extracted from the same location, thus originating a reticulate structure, which was planned in order to provide the best use of the land and to facilitate transportation and storage of harvests, as well dispatch of the final product.

Besides the vineyard, buildings were progressively erected, including manors, cellars, warehouses, tidal wells, barrel ramps, ports, convents and chapels, all of which reflect the daily lives of a population committed to the hard work involed in vine culture.

The wines of excellent quality which are produced here, mainly from the local grape variety “verdelho”, have reached the four corners of the World and they play a very important part in the economy of the island. To this day, this landscape is experienced by people who take pride in their past, preserving many of their ancestors’ rituals and techniques, and defending through their presence this vast architectural and natural heritage.

 

All documentation is the property of the Regional Secretary for Environment.