By 2024, Standing Fox needed more than ambition in the cellar.
Years of work in the vineyard were beginning to show us what this place might be capable of, and our own ideas about the wines we wanted to make had become increasingly clear. We needed a winemaker with the experience and confidence to help us take the next step.
That year, Joana Pinhão joined Standing Fox.
Joana studied viticulture and oenology at Lisbon’s Instituto Superior de Agronomia and has spent much of her career working with vineyards and wines in the Douro, alongside experience in other Portuguese and international wine regions. In 2018, she was named Young Winemaker of the Year at the W–Aníbal Coutinho awards.
What mattered to us, however, was not simply her experience.
Joana understood what we were trying to achieve at Standing Fox: wines with depth, texture and the ability to evolve over time, made in a part of Vinho Verde better known for a very different style of wine. She also shared our curiosity about what these vineyards could become without feeling constrained by convention.
Her arrival brought greater experience and discipline to instincts that had already begun shaping the project. Decisions about harvest, extraction, fermentation, oak and ageing became more precise. Just as importantly, the relationship between what happens in the vineyard and what eventually appears in the glass became increasingly central to the way we work.
The timing was important. The 2024 vintage was already showing a step forward. With Joana, we could begin to understand why, and how to build on it rather than simply repeat it. The 2025 wines moved further again.
Standing Fox remains deliberately small, which makes our relationship with Joana unusually close. We taste together, question assumptions, experiment and follow individual barrels rather than forcing them into a predetermined programme.
We have strong opinions about wine. So does Joana. That is part of what makes the relationship work.
What we share is an ambition to make wines we genuinely want to drink ourselves and are proud to put on the table for family, friends and people whose taste we respect. Wines with character and complexity, made with patience and capable of continuing to develop long after they leave our cellar.
Bringing Joana to Standing Fox was therefore more than appointing a winemaker.
It was the moment the ambition we had for the vineyard found an equally ambitious partner in the cellar.
