Why it matters
The producer
Born in Porto in 1983, Lopes studied Agricultural Engineering at the University of Porto and completed his first Alvarinho harvest in Melgaço while working with Anselmo Mendes. He founded his own project in 2010, pairing Vinho Verde’s Pequenos Rebentos with Douro Superior’s Proibido; Permitido joined the Douro work in 2013. The split matters in the glass: granite-led northern whites and Upper Douro whites are not being presented as the same place or the same wine.
Before establishing his own labels, Lopes worked in Melgaço and then travelled to Australia in 2008 for harvests in Rutherglen and Tasmania. In 2010 he brought those experiences into a project built around separate regions rather than a single estate: Pequenos Rebentos for Vinho Verde, Proibido for the Douro Superior. In 2017, he created Vinha da Sofia at Quinta do Pombal as an experimental vineyard for recovering native varieties, and in 2019 opened the project’s first winery for Pequenos Rebentos. The result is a range that can move from Alvarinho and older northern grapes to dry Douro whites without erasing the difference between them.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Pequenos Rebentos begins in northern Portugal, particularly around Melgaço and Monção, where Alvarinho and older local varieties are central to Lopes’s work. Lopes distinguishes Melgaço’s metamorphic granite, which he associates with greater concentration, from Monção’s heavier soils and fruitier wines. That contrast helps explain why parcel separation matters: a white from one part of the valley can bring firmer mineral shape, while another can lean more openly toward fruit.
Lopes farms five hectares on granite and buys grapes from selected growers who avoid herbicides. Across the wider project, the reported 200 plots are not a single continuous vineyard but a collection of small sites, each capable of ripening grapes differently. At Quinta do Paçô, an old mixed planting adds another layer: its vines were planted in 1932, so the parcel carries several varieties rather than a neat single-grape block.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
At Quinta do Pombal, vineyard work includes manual and animal work, with no irrigation. Lopes also reports that 90% of his grapes come from growers who do not use vineyard herbicides. In the cellar, the approach is low intervention, with natural-yeast fermentation. For Permitido Branco Reserva 2025, grapes were destemmed, fermented in small stainless-steel tanks and kept on lees for six months; the steel keeps oak out of the flavour picture, while lees ageing builds a lightly creamy texture beneath the fresh acidity.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range has three useful threads. Pequenos Rebentos is the Vinho Verde side, shaped by Melgaço, granite parcels, Alvarinho experience and Lopes’s interest in older varieties. Proibido is the Douro Superior project launched alongside it in 2010. Permitido, introduced in 2013, focuses on Upper Douro white wine; its earlier form was described as Rabigato-led, while the current Permitido Branco Reserva 2025 combines Viosinho, Gouveio, Rabigato and Arinto.
That 2025 Reserva comes from four hectares of vines aged 10 to 40 years. The four grapes bring different material to a dry, medium-bodied white: citrus and acidity from Arinto, herbal and yellow-fruit notes alongside pear, green apple and white peach, then lees-derived weight to keep the wine from feeling thin. It is a Douro bottle, not a Vinho Verde bottling, but it shares the wider project’s interest in letting vineyard material remain legible.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with Márcio Lopes Permitido Branco Reserva 2025. It is a dry Douro Superior white made from Viosinho, Gouveio, Rabigato and Arinto, fermented in stainless steel and aged on lees for six months. Pear, apple, peach, lime and herbs arrive first; then medium body, soft lees texture and mineral grip take over. It is the most concrete first view of Lopes’s cellar work because the bottle shows how stainless steel can preserve fresh fruit while lees ageing supplies weight and a long, slightly bitter finish.