Patchwork – a portrait of the Soalheiro Viticulturists’ Club 

During a vineyard cycle, João Bernardino and Kitato photographed the Soalheiro Viticulturists’ Club, the people who make it happen and the land they work and which unites them. 

This is how the book Manta de Retalhos | Faces of Alvarinho were born, a photographic portrait of this singular territory, Monção and Melgaço, and of the unique and familiar culture of Alvarinho. 

From Soalheiro’s vision of the territory to this book 

The uniqueness of Monção and Melgaço is explained by the natural conditions – a valley surrounded by mountains from the northernmost point of Portugal – and by the people who have realised its potential. Agriculture is smallholdings and the Alvarinho vine culture marks the landscape of the territory and the history of generations. 

Soalheiro planted its first vineyard in 1974 and, since then, its growth has been made up of these small growths, of the families of viticulturists that have come together. Today, the Viticulturists’ Club has more than 180 families. They dedicate themselves to Alvarinho at the end of the day and at weekends, treating their small plots of vine like gardens and earning a complementary income from the vineyard. 

These small plots of vine scattered across the territory designing a unique landscape: seen from above, these vineyards look like a patchwork quilt and each one has the face of its carer. The book Manta de Retalhos is a tribute to these faces, to each viticulturist, to each family. 

The book and the authors’ view 

The challenge was set to João Bernardino and Kitato (Luís Octávio Costa). Throughout a vineyard cycle, they followed the viticulturists and portrayed their connection to Alvarinho, the territory and Soalheiro. This journey resulted in a book that collects the testimonies of the protagonists of this unique culture of Monção and Melgaço. 

“One year, one vineyard cycle, divided into eight trips to Monção and Melgaço. Photographing around one hundred and fifty producers from the Viticulturists’ Club, capturing and documenting a territory and its uniqueness, from the mountains to the Minho valley, where, in a patchwork, the Alvarinho grape is born. Meeting and photographing these viticulturists is in itself photographing a region and its people, a sociological portrait and a dive into the stories of Monção and Melgaço, where hardly anyone makes a living solely from grapes, but where there are few who, beyond their jobs, don’t have a plot of vines where they go down in the evening and repeat the gestures and tasks that shape these fields. ” 

João Bernardino and Kitato

The book has prefaces by Álvaro Domingues, Geographer and Professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, and Gonçalo Maia Marques, Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo and Researcher at CITCEM-FLUP. 

From book to photographic exhibitions 

The book Manta de Retalhos was presented to the Viticulturists’ Club of Soalheiro at the end of the 2023 harvest in Melgaço Cultural Centre. The presentation to the protagonists and the entire Soalheiro family was followed by the book launch in Porto, with the inauguration of the photography exhibition that this book gave rise to. João Bernardino and Kitato’s photographic work was exhibited at Galeria Fernando Santos and will now be moving to Lisbon. 

The book Manta de Retalhos can be viewed in its entirety at mantaderetalhos.pt and at Soalheiro, where the photography exhibition will remain permanently after the presentation in Lisbon.