History

Pico Island was uninhabited when Portuguese navigators first reached the Azores in the 1420s–1430s. Settlement began around 1460, with Flemish colonists arriving under the auspices of the Duke of Burgundy — a connection that gave the Azores their early name Ilhas Flamengas (Flemish Islands). The settlers faced a landscape of raw basalt lava: largely infertile, exposed to Atlantic winds carrying salt spray, with almost no soil. Their response was agricultural ingenuity on a heroic scale: they built walls. Working entirely by hand over generations, they quarried basalt and built an interlocking system of enclosures — currais — each a few square metres in area. The walls, typically 1–2 metres high, sheltered vines from the Atlantic winds, blocked salt spray, absorbed sunlight and radiated warmth back to the vines at night.

The Verdelho grape thrived in this volcanic microclimate, producing a distinctive amber-golden wine with a smoky minerality that captivated the courts of Europe. By the 17th and 18th centuries, Pico Verdelho was one of the most celebrated wines in the world: a favourite of the Russian tsars, stocked in British Royal Navy cellars, and shipped to the American colonies. The collapse came in the 1850s when oidium fungal disease reached the Azores, followed by phylloxera. The vineyards were largely abandoned through the late 19th and 20th centuries. The UNESCO inscription in 2004 marked a turning point — restoration efforts began, and Pico Verdelho has slowly returned to production.