Why it matters
The producer
Jorge Rosa Santos founded Wine Attitude about fifteen years before VINUM’s 2025 profile. He created the company to bring together winemaking collaborations from across Portugal under one organization. Lés-a-Lés is one project within that initiative, built from discoveries Santos made while travelling through Portugal.
Rui Lopes, Santos’s friend and business partner, vinifies the Lés-a-Lés wines with him. Their range reaches isolated regions and forgotten grape varieties, including Jampal, Vital, Cereal and Malvasia Finta. Individual wines are made in small runs of 2,000 to 4,000 bottles.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Wine Attitude works through collaborations across Portugal, so Lés-a-Lés moves between regional addresses. Its Trás-os-Montes red comes from a very old vineyard at Arcossó, while Lés-a-Lés Medieval de Ourém is a red from Encostas d’Aire. The range extends to isolated areas found during Santos’s travels, with each regional name placing a different part of Portugal on the bottle.
Wines to know
The range in view
The named bottles divide the range by region, colour and historical style. Lés-a-Lés Medieval de Ourém 2022 is a red from Encostas d’Aire made from Fernão Pires and Trincadeira. It is linked to an ancestral palhete technique, in which red and white grapes can be fermented together to make a red wine. The tradition is said to have reached Portugal through the Cistercian Order.
Lés-a-Lés Vinhas Velhas 2022 is a red from Trás-os-Montes, sourced from an Arcossó vineyard with a history exceeding a century. More than 25 grape varieties grow there, about 10 percent of them white, and the vineyard produces field blends. Lés-a-Lés Quinta das Marés 2022 is a white from Alenquer.