Lucas Amaral is the youngest wine producer in the Azores. Today he is 22 years old, but he had already started producing wine in 2020, when he was 19. Despite his young age, he is the owner of Adega Vitivinícola Lucas Amaral, which already produces seven wines, and has four more to come. The Azorean has already seen his wines win awards and last month he was featured in a Forbes article.

Son and grandson of wine producers, Lucas Amaral, who was born in Candelária, Pico, has always had a close connection with wine and vineyards. From an early age, he helped pick grapes at harvest time.

However, it wasn't until he was around 10 years old, when his father "carried out the first process of rehabilitating the currais vineyards", that the young man started to become "more interested" in this process and world, which he "found interesting", explains Lucas Amaral, in an interview with Açoriano Oriental.

Around the age of 14, he decided that he wanted to make it his career. "I saw that the vineyards here in Pico had taken a big leap forward. It was a market that offered good work as soon as I finished school.”

At the age of 16, Lucas Amaral ended up joining the Professional School of Agriculture and Rural Development, in Carvalhais, in the district of Bragança, where he took the wine technician course. During the course he took four internships: two in harvesting and two in pruning. Two of these were at the Azores Wine Company, a company that has helped breathe new life into this sector in Pico.

During the internships, Amaral developed his practical knowledge of the "different processes used in various regions”. He finished his degree in Pico in 2020, because the pandemic had started. His parents, who had around 15 hectares of vines, with an estimated production of 20 tons for that year, were unable to sell their grapes. Amaral took advantage of the constraints of an atypical year and started producing his own wines.

"We decided to set up our own winery. My parents helped a lot at the time, they had a winery here belonging to my grandfather. I rebuilt it, did all the necessary work," says the producer, who opened Adega Amaral on August 15, 2020, with the help of his family.

He currently has seven wines in his repertoire, but will soon be releasing four more. In addition to his own production, he buys grapes from other producers. He uses different grape varieties, including Fernão Pires – he is the only one in the Azores -, from various parishes in Pico. He also intends to "grow more varieties, different from the ones used here", says Lucas Amaral,
In 2020, Esboçopódio was awarded several prizes. This wine was made with the first grapes he received at the winery when he started the project. Last October, in a Forbes article, his wines received very positive ratings. "Recognition is very gratifying," he says.

With an estimated production of 20,000 bottles, Adega Amaral had its best production this year. It exports to almost all the islands in the region, mainland Portugal and even countries like the Czech Republic and Italy. The only reason it does not export to other countries is because "we end up running out of wine due to so many orders", although Amaral stresses that production has increased.