RUI XAVIER for TIME Australian-born winemaker David Baverstock stands before the 120,000 liter stainless steel storage tank farm with a water cooling system

RUI XAVIER for TIME The dark and cool cellars of Esporão

While he brought to Esporão the requisite hot-climate winemaking know-how and the ability to speak Portuguese, the estate was not exactly in grape shape when he arrived. Banker Roquette had bought the place in 1973, on the eve of the revolution that ended the long dictatorship of António Salazar. "In 1974, Portugal was not the place for a wealthy capitalist," says Baverstock over a cold glass of white roupeiro. "He fled to Brazil, leaving the running of the place to a partner. There was no winery. In those days all grapes had to be sent to the local cooperative."

After the revolutionary fervor abated, Roquette was able to return. He built a winery on the estate in 1987, and when Baverstock arrived five years later it was producing 2 million liters. But it was bottling only about half that amount; the rest was sold as cheap bulk wine. "We needed to lift quality and introduce a commercial range of top, middle and lower quality wines," says Baverstock, who foresaw the globalization of French grapes leading to glut. "Cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay are fantastic varieties, but you can have too much. Portugal got left behind in the rush to replant, fortunately, because now it has this unique genetic resource in a time of oversupply."

But that old resource had to be harnessed to new ways. Much of the Alentejo wine was heavy, oxidized, rough as the stony land from which it had grown for so long. Baverstock invested his boss's money in stainless steel tanks, temperature-control equipment, hygiene, a supply of American oak barrels and different bottle styles. "We make wine in a New World way using Old World grapes," he says. About 80% of the winery's production is swallowed by Portugal's thirsty middle class, the rest is exported to Brazil, the U.S., Switzerland, the Benelux countries and Britain, in that order.

Esporão also bottles its own virgin olive oils and wine vinegars, and has recently expanded into selling Alentejo cheeses. Alongside the winery the estate also runs a restaurant that is popular with day-trippers from Lisbon, 180 km away, and increasingly with foreign enotourists. Baverstock enjoys talking to them and to buyers, explaining what new techniques can do for very old grape varieties. But most of the time he and his Portuguese deputy Luis Duarte are in the vineyards or the winery, where the sharp Alentejo sunlight ricochets off all that stainless steel, happily looking for new tricks to make a fine glass of wine taste even better.