CIt was the 70s, still during the amazement of Marcelismo, and in Douro a visionary worked at Ramos Pinto. The house, then almost a century old, was dedicated exclusively to the production of Port wines. Nothing new so far, as this happened to almost all firms in the sector. But José Rosas dreamed of expanding the company to the east, to the Douro Superior, where it would perhaps be possible to find a good-sized property without the need to carry out major land movements or levels to plant vineyards. After weekly searches looking at military maps, he arrived at the farm that is today Ervamoira. Then, José Rosas thought: “This is exactly what I want.” The farm, then planted with cereals, had owners and the owners did not want to sell it. José, we say, must have been depressed by the refusal, but he was saved by the 25th of April: confusion here, instability there, Port wine companies thinking they would close their doors or be nationalized, and José Rosas, against the opinion of many, managed to buy the farm. Cereals weren’t his thing and that’s why someone called him cereal killer when he finished the harvest and decided to plant vineyards. With the discovery of the rock engravings on the banks of the river, the farm ended up being saved by the Government of António Guterres, who ordered the suspension of work on the Côa dam that would submerge a large part of the property. At the time, the jokers on duty said with their mouths full that it was the Ramos Pinto people who were scribbling on the rocks! It would have been better to have supported the halting of the works from the beginning…