OUR HISTORY
Our family-owned farm, Vale da Forna, has a rich history dating back over 300 years and is located in the heart of Serra da Estrela Natural Park near the village of Eirô. It has been with the Caldeira Cabral family since the 17th century. In 1917, António Caldeira Cabral, doctor and hunting enthusiast, built a granite wall around the 27 hectares of the property. Francisco Caldeira Cabral, António's son and a pioneer landscape architect, used the Quinta to do some rural development experiments in merging agricultural and ecosystem regeneration activities. In 2002, his son João Caldeira Cabral and his wife Assunção started the restoration work of the ancient granite-walled cottages for rural tourism and planted a large orchard of chestnut trees. Nowadays, their daughter and son-in-law Teresa and Manuel Prates manage Vale da Forna. A big part of our on-going nature restoration work includes wild-fire prevention activities such as cleaning up the land and planting fire-resistant indigenous oak and chestnut trees.
2023
WILD-FIRE PREVENTION AND SUSTAINABLE FARMING
Like many rural areas in Portugal, Serra da Estrela has been severely affected by forest wild-fires in the recent years. The fires of October 2017 made their way to Quinta do Vale da Forna and the Eirô village. Fortunately, we were able to stop the fires and prevented any critical damage in the Vale da Forna. This was possible thanks to the people of the Eirô village, as well as all the work we have done on ensuring good access to water, maintaining the property clean and with easy access 'fire cutting' paths, and by having planted hundreds of resistant trees. We're also strongly committed to sustainable farming, having planted indigenous fruit and nut trees. Our main produce right now are chestnuts and olives. We also work with an apiculture expert that keeps bees in our farm and produces his own honey.
