Photo: Vânia Carneiro
Words: Maria Martinho
Father and daughter share a passion for the Douro, for wine and for life. They carry with them memories, traditions and a family business. Without forgetting the past, they face the future with a smile, and with the certainty that the best is yet to come.
It was on a rainy afternoon that we talked with Cristiano, 65, and Francisca, 37. Beyond the green iron gate is the home of a large family, at Foz do Douro in Porto, which loves to host and has a tale to tell.
The Van Zellers left the Netherlands for political and religious reasons, came to Portugal and settled in Porto as port wine merchants, thus bound to the Douro and the production of wines since 1620. Cristiano and Francisca are nowadays at the wheel of Van Zellers & Co., a family business that has been going on for 15 generations.
Ultimately, what’s it like to be born, live and grow up in a family where wine plays an intrinsic part in their lives? “I understood I had been born into a wine family at the age of six when my dad gave me a slap for being caught drinking. I was taking a swig from the tap of a wine cask, and I thought it tasted delicious,” remembers Cristiano van Zeller, good-humouredly. At the time, when wine was still a vague and ill-defined notion, holidays were spent among the Douro vineyards, where discovering what nature had to offer in constant freedom ruled supreme. “I never thought I’d follow this path, but life pushed me towards the wine business.”
Francisca, his oldest daughter, had exactly the opposite thought, and understood from an early age where her future lay. Aged three, she dipped a finger in a glass of port wine to try it, at 10 she said she wanted to be a “wine chef”, without having any idea what oenology was, at 18 she received a vineyard christened in her name as a birthday present and at 20 she left for California to present the family wines for the very first time. “Despite having gained an interest in this area from an early age, my father encouraged me to go study other things and get to know the world. I studied history in London and then journalism, and understood that when working with wine it was also important to be able to tell a good story and if it was true, then even better.”
Cristiano admits that when he decided to plant a vineyard in Francisca’s name in 2004, he was hoping that his daughter would carry on the business, but is adamant that the legacy should be passed on only if it were not an obligation. “Maintaining a company, a business and a name with so long a history isn’t easy, we truly went through feast and famine, we opened and closed doors, spun around more than a dozen times and did cartwheels to get here. I always hoped Francisca would want to carry on the business, but it was never imposed upon her, her own interests and references came first.”
In 2017, father and daughter began working together at Quinta da Aveleda, and nothing seems to ever have compromised this relationship of constant sharing, complicity and respect. “I think I only noticed the impact of this change later on, as I grew older. When we work together as a family and we like what we do, it becomes difficult to define boundaries and limits as to where the work ends and leisure time begins. Anyway, we never made such rules, and today it’s much the same, which can be freeing and chaotic at the same time,” explains Francisca.
The question “what comes first, business or family?” sometimes comes up in conversations between father and daughter, and the answer is not always obvious or straightforward. “It’s always changing, it very much depends on the circumstances and decisions we need to make, but we are always ready to choose family over business.” Generational conflict seems not to exist between them — “just aches and pains in the knees,” jokes Cristiano — perhaps it is their sense of humour, curiosity, and desire to innovate that smooths over any differences.
In the last few years, the brand has adopted a more modern approach, very much focused on social media, partnerships geared towards sustainability and environmental concerns, and in spreading the word in more fun, quirky and dynamic ways such as through podcasts. “For the Ocean Aged project, where we aged the first ever Porto Vintage wine at the bottom of the ocean and whose bottle packaging was made in partnership with Zouri Shoes, only using plastic recovered from the Portuguese coastline, I never once heard my dad call it an insane idea. On the contrary, he’s always believed this is the way forward, and it demonstrates his trust in me and, of course, in the future,” Francisca points out.
They share the same enthusiasm about the future, life, and company they are now relaunching, with the same objectives and the same glint in their eye. Cristiano prefers to continue offering a better-quality product in lesser qualities, without ever losing focus or consistency. “We want the same from the market as we do from life.
We’re redesigning a company, and it should reflect the way we live. As a family, we are earth-friendly, we respect nature, we like being with people and have a generous spirit, and the brand should reflect this.”
If Cristiano van Zeller has vast experience in port wine and sees in his daughter an “enormous desire to do things differently”, Francisca is following in the footsteps of a father whose emotion and empathy are a true inspiration. “My parents don’t give me advice, they give me examples, but the greatest lesson my father has to give is one of having heart, warmth, and openness. The greatest leaders are always there for others, and have a heart to match.”
